Bond
by wickedDiSaster
Summary: The first conscious feeling Draco remembered is the pull. Hermione defined it as a state of irrational anxiety. He thought that while there was much unclear about their connection, this much he could always be certain, his entire being would always revolve around her. He never imagined the axis of his world could spiral so out of control when it wasn't so. A/U
1. Chapter 1

******Disclaimer:** In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling, Warner Bros, Bloomsbury Publishing, et cetera, this work of fiction is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.

**Bond **

**Author's Notes:** This story is now beta'd by **doomsday2012**, **windsword14** & **Hunter's Heir**. You guys rock!

**Chapter 1 **by WickedDiSaster

The first conscious feeling Draco remembered was the pull. Hermione defined it as a state of irrational anxiety. The next feeling he could pinpoint was the restlessness.

Truth be told, during his first eleven years of life, whenever he felt it, he took a walk through the large grounds of his Manor. The stroll always took him to the far west corner of the lands, never quite reaching its limits. He could not help snapping with astounding ease whenever anyone dared deny him this; getting himself grounded, however, only enhanced the feeling.

_Her_ anxiety during this period would make her incessant pacing carve holes in her bedroom's carpet. She wasn't allowed to roam the streets of London on a whim by herself – not even the park – since one of her anxiety-driven strolls had once taken her too far.

In that sense, Hogwarts had provided her with the forlorn comfort that only extensive grounds delivered. Yet, the Wizarding School had shown her just as many disappointments. She had harboured so many expectations for this place that the rejection of her peers took a harder toll on her.

When she received the letter, she made herself believe that the awkwardness of her nature rooted on her magical abilities, that all her social inadequacies would mean nothing once she joined her "kind". Oh, how it hit her when she discovered that this new world would make her an outcast not just for her lack of social skills, but for the nature of her background as well.

At her school in London, she had at least learned what to expect. Here, not only was everything new, but her solace – the books – failed to help her cope with the new reality. Hope for what awaited her in Hogwarts had her soaring so high that the fall had made her crumble.

That was how his walks led him to her the first time. She tried to hide her watery eyes with a firm stare on the lake. He felt annoyed with himself for having to fake his disgust at the sight of her, and failing so miserably at it too; but it didn't take him long to take it out on her. He couldn't understand why his restlessness diffused at the sight of her, so he made himself believe the peace that soothed his nerves came from mocking her.

It was never the case, of course.

This first time, he had stopped to rest his back on a tree, as she remained seated a few steps ahead of him. His pride would not allow him to leave just because of a sodding Gryffindor, or so he told himself.

But he first time she encountered _him_, he was throwing the bag of chocolate frogs his mum had sent him at breakfast. The force of each chucked sweet unable to hide his fury. She threw a rock, making it bounce through the surface of the lake, daring him to make his go farther.

By the time he realised he had started to associate the _Mudblood_ with a sense of comfort, the bickering came back with a vengeance.

It wasn't until summer – when she first learned the secrets behind the Knight Bus – that she found herself on the edges of his Manor. He was crouched on the ground, one arm resting on his knee, his other leg resting on the ground, an expression mirroring her shock plastered on his face.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?!" he snapped, cornering her like a cat would a mouse on its turf. Hermione gaped like a goldfish.

It took her a second to find her voice, "What are _you_ doing here?!"

"I live here, you stupid Mudblood!"

That new piece of information renewed her shock, making her eyebrows hit her hairline. It couldn't be true. She stared at him in disbelief, turning her gaze to the immense trail of trees and bushes covering their surroundings, not even the glimpse of an entrance, a house or a fancy yard around.

He could see her thoughts written all over her face; he laughed. "But you are too much of a Muggle to see it, aren't you?" he delivered with a derisive sneer, shoving her hand towards the space at his right. He shocked her yet again, when she found wrought iron under her fingers, instead of thin air.

His snicker overshadowed the awakening of her senses, as the view through the large metal door displayed a seemingly endless path behind it.

Draco knew he had just forgotten that his wards stayed set to blind strangers, but he enjoyed his mockery nonetheless. That is, until the hurt and insecurity invaded her senses and Draco's already tampered mood dropped to disbelieving lows thanks to his unyielding restlessness.

He turned her around with a raging mood, grabbed her by the arm and growled in a threatening voice: "What are you doing here?" Although he already knew why – he was anything but thick – and these absurd encounters had happened far too many times at school for him to blame it on simple coincidence. Her presence there was almost like a howler confirming his fears.

She opened her mouth to speak, unable to manage one single word, trying to get her bearings back, when the sound of people approaching interrupted them. With reflexes quicker than her sight, he made a cut on her hand and shoved her through the doors that melted into thin air before she could see where her drop of blood had marred it. The iron gates let them through, and instead of following the endless path ahead, he delved into the forest surrounding it, finding an untraceable track through the thick forest. It could have been a shortcut or an attempt to drag her deeper into its darkness.

He ran pulling her behind him as fast as he could for what felt like ages, until they reached another edge, and Hermione faced the most spectacular view she had ever imagined. His mansion was truly astonishing.

He didn't let her gawk at it, though; he pulled her behind a bush, drawing a finger to his lips, signalling her to keep quiet. Draco summoned an elf on the other side of a bush and commanded him to bring his broom. Hermione could hear people approaching through the path of the railing door, but before she could so much as voice it, he pulled her up to mount the broom. The next second, it soared through one of the windows.

That was the first time Hermione would find herself in his room. He yelled at her for being there, she roared he had all but kidnapped her, and he started ranting about how it was all her fault. She sighed in frustration, opened up his window, and checking for marauders outside, she climbed down through one of the plants and rails decorating the facade.

Right about midway down, he appeared on his broom, asking her – in what he thought were whispers – what the hell did she think she was doing.

She ignored him as best as she could, until her patience got the best of her.

"I'm leaving! What does it look like, Malfoy? You obviously don't want me here. And you can bet your life on it, I don't want to be here either!" She landed on her feet and marched towards the path that led to the entrance door, leaving behind a fuming Draco Malfoy.

Getting out of his property proved easier than she had thought, even though Malfoy yanked her back through the trail they had taken to enter. The wards let her come through without a problem after the obnoxious git had shed her blood that afternoon.

He never explained why they ran off from his father in that manner, but he did make her vow that she would never breathe a word of what had happened that day.

She was more than happy to oblige.

The next year, the way they lashed at each other did very little to sever their connection. Nevertheless, although they hurt each other deeply, they discovered yet another way to relieve both of their pent up frustration.

The first time they kissed, it was the middle of second year, and they were in an empty hall. The kiss ended as suddenly as it begun, and did nothing to diffuse the rage behind their bickering. Especially when the shock of being shoved against a wall with his lips against hers, turned into awareness and awareness turned into a battle for dominance.

As time went on, however, their private fights would somehow have a way of finishing in a snogging session; and more frequently than not, the snogging feast would fail to end as abruptly as it began. It finished, instead, in a heaving contest of silence for who caught their breath back first. They learned to drag this as well, for as long as they could.

With time, these extended moments turned into quiet periods of solace, after which they left the bickering aside, exclusive for their public displays; a silent agreement that soon carried a distinct amount of secret mockery, becoming more endearing rather than spiteful.

Mudblood and Obnoxious Git could have been pet-names for all they knew. Smirks and secret winks were met with a roll of her eyes and a light blush.

They never talked about it, never arranged a meeting, and never failed to attend one. When one-half was in need, the other one was in need of assisting to it. Time turned their senses more acute, making them distinguish desire from ache, not just by the angst behind the welcoming lips, but for the nature of the pull as well.

They never asked the whys or the hows; they comforted each other with their mere presence, their soft whispers and their light touches.

A year later, he surprised her by moving below her waist, while she chanted his name first in astonishment, and then in a reverie. He kissed her in places he had never touched her before. He enjoyed the way he could make her blush just by licking his lips. He would not miss an opportunity to have her thrashing underneath his touches when his fuming temper attracted her to his chambers.

They still had spectacular rows, especially each time she landed herself in the Hospital Wing.

During the summer before fourth year, while he ranted about his father at Malfoy Manor, she stopped his endless pacing with a stubborn pull on his forearm. She sat him on his bed with her in front, giving him a secure and sympathetic stare that he only allowed from her. "It doesn't matter, Draco," she whispered, "the entire world could abandon you and judge you; I know better. I would always come to pick up the pieces. You'll never be alone. I'm helpless to leave you – and Draco – I don't ever _want_ to leave you."

He wanted to deny that was ever the issue, wanted to yell at her for insinuating it in the first place, but her next words shut him up effectively.

"I am in love with you, I can't stop myself from loving you, and I'm not trying to-"

His bruising kiss could have ended wars. His kisses tended to silence her where his words could not, and this one was not different. It silenced her threatening words and stopped him from thinking himself, a kiss that would inevitably brand her as his.

He failed to stop when she fell on the bed, he continued through the empowered rush of her body beneath his own; he never stopped. He never stopped pouring his pent-up fury for crossing that unspeakable line, for making him feel the way he did.

All the while, she showed him the sincerity of her words, taking his wrath in a stride through her unyielding tenderness.

That was how he took her virginity, and how he learned to be amazed by her; that was the first time he was crushed by her complete trust of him, the first time her beauty rendered him speechless.

She was the first one to break the silence with a tired yawn, her perspiring body limbered up under the sheets, _his_ sheets. She wore the most breath-taking smile he had ever seen.

Her knowing eyes looked at his terrified expression with wonder. "I don't want to leave," she sighed, and it took him a while to understand that meant she 'had' to leave, as she got up from the bed, drawing the sheet around her shape.

He stopped her with a firm grip around her wrist that made her turn her attentive eyes to him. "Then don't," he said, plain and clear, with the most stoic voice he could muster.

She caressed his hand with light fingers, her troubled eyes focused on his hold. "If only," she whispered and kissed him with all her desire to stay. He felt a tear running down the side of her lips, and understood. The gnawing thoughts lurking in her mind were not about being late home but about his father. He tensed at the thought. She smiled in his lips, running a finger through his cheek. She gave him a smile that in his opinion paralleled the sunshine on warm spring days.

"Hey, we'll see each other soon enough, I know it," she had murmured.

The peck on his bare chest before she climbed down his window left him rooted to the spot for what felt like ages. She had disappeared long ago from his lands when he removed himself from the window. After that night, he ordered his elves not to touch his sheets for a week.

The next time they did it, it took him five minutes to follow her after she left his Manor. The smile that she wore when the Knight Bus turned around and he climbed up made him feel like Merlin himself. She was so fidgety during the ride that he could see the people seated next to her throwing odd glances her way.

To his surprise, they didn't stop at her place, where he had been known to land himself in many occasions, but a good five blocks away, at a park he had never seen before. She jumped and hugged him as soon as he stepped foot on solid ground, with an ecstatic "Draco!"

He couldn't help his smirk. "In the flesh." She hit him on the arm, unable to hold her dashing smile, muttering something he couldn't quite place.

"I thought we were going to your place," he muttered, trying to hide his qualms on this regard. As if he could hide anything from her.

"We are," she cheekily replied, "I just found the Knight Bus entirely too fast for my liking." She took a hold of his arm and prodded him to walk with her.

"Is that so?" he raised an eyebrow, and watched her smile die on her lips as something ahead of them caught her attention. "What is it?" he asked, but the answer came in the form of a shrilly, girly voice down the street.

"Is that Hermione Granger?" he heard. "Yes, yes it is!" the voice continued. "Fell off the face of the planet; that one did!" Another girly voice added, "You scared her away, Mandy, you did, remember?"

Draco raised his cold stare to meet their faces, looking at the devious smile said Mandy portrayed as she answered in the same shrilly voice, "Well, I suppose I did."

"In your dreams, McDonally! I simply went to a boarding school," Hermione snapped.

"And what a boarding school it must be, if the best this pumpkin could find was you." Mandy smiled flirtatiously at Draco, "What an ugly camp of shrews, darling, if you think you can conform with 'this' – she looked at Hermione – for a girlfriend."

At first, Draco had controlled his rage with thoughts of what he'd do to them if the Ministry wasn't an issue. His snapping rebuff, though, fell muted by the sound of the word girlfriend, making him barely notice the insolent Muggle running her hands down his chest.

He did feel, nonetheless, the wave of hurt both his reaction to the word and his lack of response brought to the shaking girl on his left.

He didn't even hear Hermione's snapping remark to the petty chit, he felt too distracted by the way she had removed her arm from his, as if he'd just burned her. She now stood a step ahead from him, blocking the hurt through glares of contempt to the owner of the hand that, he then noticed, still rested on his coat. He snapped.

The world became alive and loud with traffic sounds again, and he restrained from twisting the Muggle's hand while he removed it from his robes. "I don't care who you are, and I don't care what your issues are," Draco sneered, "if you ever so much as look at my girlfriend the wrong way, I will make you wish you hadn't been born." He looked at her with disgust, "And if you ever put your hands on me again, you will lose them." As soon as he let her go, the chits hurried away, barely concealing their fright.

He stared at a stunned shape of the girl who, mere seconds ago, had been glowing at the sight of him, and now didn't dare a look in his direction.

He ached to Crucio the chits running fast across the street. He would have done so if not for the pull that made him gravitate to her, the pull that currently rooted him to the ground, to the thirty centimetres separating him from her as she hugged herself, holding together the pieces that formed her.

She had felt how estranged that word felt on his lips. Girlfriend was not in his vocabulary, girlfriend was not in his plans, it was not what they were, and know-it-all that she was, she knew it with palpable clarity.

It didn't matter that he had just defended her from two dim-witted Muggles, defining her as such. It didn't matter that, for a split second, that word made her exhale the breath she was holding; it didn't matter because, the next second, she had felt how that word made him feel. How _defining them _made him feel.

It was enough to send the wheels reeling in her mind. He knew she was certain that such a scene wouldn't repeat itself in Hogwarts grounds. He knew that despite what she had given him less than an hour ago, he couldn't turn his back on his beliefs, on his family, on everything that he was.

She was petrified – he could feel it; and the thirty centimetres of air separating her from him felt like a wall of bricks restraining him to move. Because she was the one with the reassuring words, she was the one with the heart on her sleeve; she was the one strong enough to voice what he could not even dream about.

She was shaking, and the gravitating force that pulled him to her now stopped him from moving closer as well. She was shaking and breathing heavily, as he felt the weight of the world crushing on his shoulders. He could feel how she tried to keep it down, how she tried to stop her heart from breaking.

He could feel it in each intake of breath she took that failed to calm her.

Until he saw, he saw the tear hit the sleeve of her shirt while she hugged herself tighter, and something cracked inside him, petrifying him from the inside out.

He pulled her towards him with all his might, and kissed every part of her head he could reach. When he finally pulled her face up, he found it covered in tears that kept flowing from her closed eyes.

He could feel her breathing ease on his arms, but the sight of her broke him. She couldn't, she couldn't look at him and it terrified him. Because he knew he hurt her, that he would continue to hurt her; he knew it was the smart thing to leave him, and he was holding the smartest witch in his year.

Then the weight of her words finally settled in, filling him with dread.

"You said you wouldn't leave me," he said, surprising himself with the raw sound of his voice.

It felt as a testament to her pain that she had to nod to his assessment, because words were too much for her.

"Never," Draco pressed on, and heard her take a gulp of air before she whispered in a gruff voice.

"Never, Draco, never," and he felt her try to hide her face in his chest because another wave of tears threatened to pour, but he didn't let her. It was enough that she would not dare look at him.

"Promise it, no matter what happens, no matter how I screw up, you said you would be there."

She smiled at him – a weak smile – but the ghost of a smile nonetheless. "Always," she said solemnly, taking another deep breath, before continuing, "You don't need to worry about that, Draco, a hoard of Death Eaters couldn't stop me from coming to you." She took another breath and opened her eyes, "I can't leave you."

And Draco saw the truth of her words in her eyes, and how said truth cracked her open, because it would be Draco who'd leave her broken.

He wanted to yell at her it wasn't so, wanted to scream at her for figuring it out, but it was just that; she had figured it out because it was true, and despite her knowledge, despite her crushing certainty, she had chosen to stay by him, to stay true to him. Because he knew she had been honest, and he couldn't bring himself to lie to her after that.

He walked her home and snuck into her bedroom, where he held her throughout the night, kissing her, hugging her, holding her, and watching her sleep. Doing all those things he wouldn't do when they came back, including waking her up to say goodbye, and giving her his ring on a chain wrapped around her neck.

He visited her many more times during that summer, and it would be the last summer she stepped foot on his property without being turned into a bloody mess, or being dragged at wand point.


	2. Chapter 2

******Bond **

**Chapter 2 **by WickedDiSaster

The next year at school, their rows were ferocious. He would be insanely possessive of her and she would be stubbornly patient with him.

The first time he started questioning her friendship with "Scarhead", she restrained from putting him in his place with awe-inspiring self-control. When he lashed out on the Boy-Who-Lived himself, she forgave him only because he had been turned into a ferret for it; but when he went as far as to try to force her to leave them, she gave into their fights with all she had.

"I have to go," she ascertained. It took so little for him to explode these days.

"The fuck you do! Why the hell do you have to hang out with them!"

"Because they are my friends, Draco! As bizarre as that term might sound to you!"

"That ginger piece of scum is anything but a friend to you! Even I know that, the entire _school_ knows that!"

"It's just a stupid crush, Draco, it doesn't mean a thing!"

"Yet you don't see me hanging around anyone with a meaningless crush on me, do you!"

"Oh, please! Half this school has a crush on you! And you don't exactly avoid their advances either!"

"Why the fuck should I!? All you do is chase Pothead and Ginger Head all day long!"

"No, you don't, Draco! You don't get to do this. They are my FRIENDS! This is a hard time for both of them. I can't just leave them because that suits your mood. I can't and I won't because that's not who I am, and you know it." She took some time to calm herself before continuing, "They need me, Harry needs me, and believe it or not that proud stubborn git who abandoned the other needs me too."

"If that's need, I can think of at least ten girls in my house who need me just as much!"

It wasn't that he enjoyed the way all the colour drained from her face, it wasn't that he wanted to see the ghost of her insecurities in the way she swallowed her pride; but he was a Slytherin, he was a Malfoy, and neither grovelled about to get their mate to stop chasing around other guys. All of it was ridiculous. She was turning him into a Hufflepuff.

"You don't mean that," she swallowed. "Draco, you know it's not like that. You know I'd never do that. You'd never-" she wanted to say it, wanted to make it true, wanted to hear _him_ say it.

She didn't get either of her wishes though, and as she backed away a step or two, she crumbled against the wall of a cupboard that felt more suffocating by the second. Draco stepped forward, evil incarnate that he tried to be, took a hold of her chin and forced her to look at him. He stared unflinchingly into her deep brown eyes, daring her to remind herself, to remember who he was.

Just because she had peeled off so many layers, because she had uncovered all his facades, and broken down all his walls, it did not mean she had him wrapped around her bloody Gryffindor finger. Or so he wanted to believe.

He was about to step out of the cupboard, leaving her with that clear warning, when she stopped him – not with a word, not with a gesture but with her sole need for him to stay, with that gravitating power that compelled him to stay rooted to the floor.

He stared expectantly back at her, arms crossed over his chest, eyebrow raised in what he hoped was a sign of annoyance. He knew she could see right through it all, though.

"Draco" - he could hear the tremble in her voice - "I can't, I, I," - she was trying not to sob, failing miserably at it too - "I can't, please, oh god, I, they are my fr- no, they are my family! I can't just leave them. Oh, god-" She was right out sobbing on his chest and hitting him hard there too. "I can't believe I even thought about it, that I would even try, they saved my life, Draco! More than once! How could I just- How did I just think about it!?" She looked up to him, and he used every ounce of will power in his being not to give in. "Draco, they are the brothers I never had, they don't stand a chance with you, please understand that, I can't leave them, I just can't," she breathed.

It was the word 'brothers' that got to him. "Your brother has some very romantic feelings towards you, Hermione."

"He's just confused, Draco. It's just a matter of time."

Malfoys didn't repeat themselves, he thought as a mantra. It was too much that he had been unable to hold his comment about her sodding incestuous _brother_, so he focused on his impassive front – 'cause Merlin knew, he was anything but impassive with the Gryffindor. She was breathing him in; he liked how she did that, how it felt as if the sole act gave her peace, solace, strength. Right now, though, he wanted to push her at arm's length because she was meddling with his defences again.

He kept his ground, and did not hug her back when she buried her face on his neck, but it wasn't that which prompted a flicker of emotion to break through his facade. It was when she stood on the tip of her toes and cradled his face in her hands. "Draco, I love you," she said, and kissed him, pouring her heart in the kiss. "Don't ever forget that," she added; and with that, she finally left.

Any more seconds of that trusting, loving, and simply bare look in her eyes, and Draco would have given in. However, she left, and that's all he remembered, all he needed to fuel his revenge.

She was in the bathroom when she heard it. It wasn't the first time that an obnoxious girl bragged about an alleged kiss from the Slytherin Prince, it was the way she told it; she didn't describe the romantic, loving, under-the-moonlight kiss. She was talking about the rough, against-the-wall, hands-all-over type of kiss, a kiss that sounded not so much as bragging but as a friend trying to come to terms with a very difficult puzzle.

It wasn't a surprise that she ran from the room, that she found herself hyperventilating in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, or that he found her on the floor hugging her knees, and hiding her face between them.

She knew he was there the moment he stepped foot in the bathroom, and, while she chided herself for being silly, while she scolded herself for crying over nothing, and blamed her irrational insecurities for dragging him here; the second she raised her head to meet his eyes and apologise, she knew. She knew without the shadow of a doubt, with a staggering certainty, she _knew_; and she couldn't look at him anymore.

As the blow of the truth hit her in the callous zeal of his eyes, in the cold stance of his facade, she didn't need to hear why, or how; she didn't need to peel him to know how he truly felt. She knew it all already, she knew why, she knew what it took from him; and –Merlin help her – she knew just what he had focused on while doing it.

She knew this and a lot more in the precious seconds that it cost her to bolt from the room and ran as far away from him as she could, because just thinking of him was unbearable, seeing him was a whole different level of pain she just couldn't take.

It was that pain, that staggering, torturing weight, that hollow in her chest that she couldn't escape, which made her run until her legs gave in, until her whole being had not a speck of strength in her body. Even then, she could not give into exhaustion and enter the world of the unconscious. The hurt was so profound, so heart-wrenchingly wearing that she forced herself to focus on the less painful aspects of her situation.

She didn't know where she was, she didn't know what time it was or for how long she had been missing. She didn't want to see anyone, but she didn't want anyone to come looking for her either. She could just think of the person who could find her with a useful map as soon as he noticed her absence, if he hadn't already.

She forced herself not to think of that someone else who could find her without a map.

She used a glamour charm to make her fade into the surroundings, that, and a jinx to keep onlookers at bay along with an invigorating charm. She levitated back to the edge of the forest because her legs just wouldn't obey.

Every now and then, she'd use her wand to point her into the right direction, even practiced her Wandless magic to keep her alert from the creatures of the Forbidden Forest. She used every trick in the book to keep her mind from wandering into painful territory.

The hurt never left her nonetheless.

She managed to get back to her bed unnoticed, and before dark sent a message, explaining breakfast hadn't agreed with her and she would be gone until further notice.

She placed a silencing charm around the drawn curtains of her four-poster bed. She casted every calming charm she knew on herself; and she focussed on every Wandless Spell she could think of, until one finally put her out.

She woke up screaming, gasping and then sobbing. First came the hurt, the suffocating inexplicable weight in her chest, and then her mind, her treacherous, treacherous mind that got her looking for the source, and then made her wish for the nightmare.

The fact that for fleeting seconds, when the pain first crushed her, she would think of him, only to remember it all over again later, was the worst.

Her days would go from one task to the next, conveying her mind to focus on each, meticulously. Classes, helping Harry, talking to Ron, doing homework, studying, getting ready for the next day.

It all worked well until that fateful day, when they summoned them and put them asleep underwater.


	3. Chapter 3

**Bond**

**Chapter 3 **by WickedDiSaster

Draco felt as if the axis of his world had spiralled out of control. He was supposed to rotate around her, everything was supposed to be about her; that pathetic excuse of a kiss had been about her. He was supposed to gravitate around her.

He thought that while there was much unclear about their situation, this much would always be true. That part of his life, he could always be certain.

Boy, could he even think about the connotations of his new reality. Only one thing kept him sane these days: his entire existence would always revolve around her. Everything he was and everything he did would start and end with her. His life would always be about her.

Such thoughts, which had been banned from his mind not so long ago, were the only thing keeping him breathing, eating, walking and answering when spoken to, these days.

That and the sole fact that however raw, however black, heavy and bloody hurtful her pain was, he could still feel it. He could still feel her.

It felt as if someone had broken into his brain, and messed around with the wires. As if he didn't walk through air but water, muddy and dark waters that didn't let him breathe, let alone speak.

He couldn't find her.

He still had trouble thinking it. It cracked him. He couldn't remember a moment in time when he had been unable to feel her location, unable to go to her when he needed to. She would always be there, just at the edge of his very soul. He couldn't even begin to describe the void.

He had always been able to find her. Always.

It didn't matter that he couldn't explain himself, or the horrors of the world; he knew how his sole presence was enough for her, how she would feel just by having him near; how all the bad in the universe would crumble to pieces when she looked at him.

She was in pain.

He knew this like he knew he existed, with the same certainty of his feelings for her. He knew she hurt, he knew she hurt all over, and it wasn't possible for a human to bear as much pain. Yet he knew she felt it. And he couldn't go to her.

It wasn't even a sin that he took respite in her pain, because if she felt it, she was still there, unreachable, unattainable, but there. Breathing, living, alive.

Not with him, but alive.

Merlin, how was his world hollow?

He couldn't even look at her, it wasn't enough that he couldn't go to her. He couldn't _look_ at her.

He couldn't so much as glance in her direction. He had been out of his mind when that night, he flew to her tower and he couldn't so much as veer towards her room. The next morning there wasn't a soul in the Great Hall when he went up for breakfast, waiting, just waiting for her to come in.

He reminded himself to turn the page of his unread book every now and again. He placed an imperturbable charm on himself – all for nothing. As soon as she came in, he wasn't able to so much as lift his eyes from the page, much less follow her walk to her seat.

He wanted to yell, to roar that it didn't mean anything, that it was all her fault, that he hadn't felt a thing, that she had forced his hand. That he loved her, loved her to the point of insanity, and that it scared him, more than he feared his father, more than he feared death itself. He wanted to yell at her that he was sorry, that he didn't mean to, that he was just a fool, a deranged Slytherin fool, that he didn't deserve her; Circe, he knew he didn't deserve her, but he couldn't live without her. He couldn't breathe without her.

He would have screamed that and much more, at the top of his lungs, in the middle of the Great Hall, for everyone to see, everyone to hear. If only he had been able to so much as move his lips, lift a hand, or use his wand to get her attention. As soon as the thought of a magical note crossed his mind, he couldn't flick his wand. He couldn't articulate a cry of help, anything at all.

In the darkness of his nights, he remembers walking to that forsaken bathroom, feeling her denial, her shaking nerves, her apology for making him come, for feeling the way she felt, for doubting him. He feels it. He focuses on the pull, on the memory of everything he felt up until that point, because he needs to remember it was real, he needs to remind himself his world once made sense. He needs to remember that he was once a piece of a puzzle that fitted right next to her. That up until he crossed the threshold of that bathroom his life made sense.

He's way past the guilt now, he knows just what kind of utter piece of shit he is. He knows that someone able to cause such pain shouldn't exist, let alone be allowed to breathe the same air she breathes.

He knows with astounding accuracy how much he hurt her. He can still see it in the memory of her eyes staring into his.

He remembers focusing on keeping his cool, so much that when her eyes found his, he was thrown out of course. He felt like being blown out of his flesh. He felt as if watching from outside how she didn't need to hear his callous rehearsed speech of how he had done it, of _what_ he had done, and the lies. The lies that he didn't need to see her break into a million pieces before him.

He remembers, he remembers feeling her apology, for making him come, for doubting him.

He wants to take it back, to grovel at her feet, to never ever let her hear a word from it.

And it's not enough to never let her out of his sight once more. He wants to deny it ever happened. He wants to encase her in his arms and hold her because he knows she needs it. He wants to go to her, to take a step forward and explain. There, in the threshold of that forsaken bathroom, he wants his body to change his stupid poise; he wants it to move. But not only is he rooted to the spot, he's unable to flinch. What's worse is that he knows that were he able to move, that cursed force that made him gravitate to her all this time would have him blasted out of the room.

So he watches as she runs past him, although he doesn't know how she's able to hold herself together with everything she's feeling. The weight of it makes him dizzy. The weight keeps him stunned, immobile, unable to utter a word. Despite the war that he feels inside him, everything is quiet on the outside; not even the infamous ghost has been back to the bathroom when he feels her crumble.

A century has gone by, and he knows she's too exhausted, he feels it, she can't go on. He leaves the room then, because he knows she'll need him. The force of the hurt is about to hit her again, and he's not sure if she's going to come out of it this time. He wants to go to her; and he has never been as scared in his life as when he figures out he cannot find her.

He feels how she's trying to keep him off her mind, he commends her for it. Because she's so smart, that despite his atrocious, despicable inability to be there for her, she's pulling through. She's still there, alive, bearing a world of hurt but there, unattainable to him, but still breathing.

That's when it hits him, why he can't find her, why he couldn't move when he entered the bathroom – when she bolted from it. When it finally hits him that she can't think of him, let alone _look_ at him. And it's like gasping for air and drowning from it.

He can't even think of how she'd get over it. He can't think of how she would be able to look him in the eye without remembering how he's hurt her.

He waits then, he breathes, he feels, he lives. Barely, but he knows he does. He can't imagine how it will be possible that she will ever need him again; so he lives for the second of every morning when she wakes up and fleetingly thinks of him, before the nightmare swallows her whole again. He lives for the second when he feels her at the edge of his soul, for the fleeting instant in which she needs him and he knows where she is.

Until the school meddles again, and as usual, whenever something exciting and right out petrifying is happening, she's involved in it.

It's a task, he knows; it doesn't stop him from going ballistic and right down suicidal when in the middle of an afternoon, he stops feeling her pain.

He doesn't remember much about anything after that. He just remembers knowing Potter finally blew it, and she paid the price. He knows, because he can no longer feel her. For a million seconds after it happens, he stands there, immobile, with the air knocked out of him. He is unable to scream, to snap, to break something. He's empty, and filled with this indescribable black, that's stronger than even what she feels. For a moment he wants to think he's feeling so much it's blocking her out, but he knows that if it were so, she would be there, she would have come already because his need for her has come to overpass her pain by now, he knows it. She's gone.

She's gone.

He knows she can't come back to him. He knows he hasn't given her reason to hunt his soul. He knows that with her last intake of breath she didn't need him, because he didn't feel her, the way he feels her every morning, when he's certain of her location for an instant, for a few seconds. She hasn't even given him a last location.

Maybe she was even protecting him, it's not that he doubts her love for him. At this point, he has wished she didn't love him as much.

Now it doesn't matter. Nothing matters, because she's gone.

He doesn't know how or when, he merely knows where he's flying. He doesn't know how he looks, if he's hurt, if the glasses of her window have damaged anything besides the desk where she keeps her books. He doesn't feel anything. He can't even bear to look at her handwriting.

He plunges on her pillow and breathing in what's left of her scent, he cries.

Her room is empty for the moment, he knows it won't be so for long but he couldn't care less. He wants to see anyone try to get him out. He aches for it, someone to destroy, someone to crush, someone to hurt as much as he's hurting.

Then something happens, and his world turns off its axis once again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Bond**

**Chapter 4 **by WickedDiSaster

Hermione remembers opening her eyes and being surrounded by water, but that's not what's crushing her. She knows the glimmer of hope she feels is not hers. She knows that need, she has felt it before, and she's glad she's in the water when the gravitating pull hits her, because she's not ready; she's not ready to face him yet.

As she's pulled out of the water, she's happy to see Harry and Ron and everyone. People are already wrapping her in blankets, cheering and spelling all their clothes dry, but while she's smiling and happy – as happy as she can be at least – her mind is elsewhere. She needs to go, she has to go, and she needs to do it now.

It takes her an eternity to reach her destination, and it doesn't stop surprising her where it's leading her. She opens the door to her dorm, wishing she weren't turning the knob as she did. She wishes she wasn't taking a step in, that she wasn't a second away of landing her eyes on him, because she's still petrified of what it will do to her. That is, until her eyes land on him.

He's curled on her bed, hugging her pillow and staining it with blood. His blood.

It's a scary petrifying sight, and he hasn't looked up yet. She's blown away by the amount of things he's feeling. He knows she's there, he's sorry for making her be there, he can't even let her go yet, and he's even standing up and picking up his broom, mounting it, and has he not seen the shards of broken glass sticking out of her windowpane? Has he forgotten he's still crushing her pillow against him?

He's trying to run, to be stronger than the force and leave, because she shouldn't be looking at him again. Because Potter didn't fail her, because somehow, he's brought her back. Because the last thing he can do now is be less of a bastard and keep her sane, for he knows that her friends have been keeping her sane for him; and he's messing it up again.

Despite the world of good that her presence does him, he remembers her fear, her wish not to be there, not to open the door, and he tries to be stronger than the pull.

She takes a hold of his wrist to stop him. It feels warm; it feels like sunlight on his skin, as if someone had just shed a ray of light in the black room that he lived in. She's alive, and touching him.

She is confused, she doesn't understand what he is doing there, she is at a loss of words. He's feeling so much, she doesn't understand what he's doing, because God knows she did not want to be here. God knows he had to need her there! So she doesn't get why he is trying to run away.

She pushes him off the broom and has him seated on her bed. He is like a marionette in her hands. She knows what her presence does to him, and yet the raw weight of everything is still crushing him. She breaks the silence, because all she can think of is,_ 'Has he just realised what he's done? Has he just taken in the guilt of what he did to me?'_

"Is that why it took you this long to come look for me?" she voices, and he realises that she doesn't know. The pain she felt blocked him out of the picture, and whatever heaven she just came back from, she "didn't" feel him. She doesn't know he couldn't find her. She doesn't know how scared he was, she doesn't know how she just gave him back his sanity.

When he looks up to her, she's glaring at him, arms crossed over her chest, a closed look upon her features; she's staring right at him, right through him.

He smiles, the first smile he's given in months.

She doesn't know what to make of it; why is he glad? She doesn't know where that relief comes from. She just knows it's there, and it makes her want to lash out; yet, he stops her.

He's hugging her, and it's the way he's hugging her that blows her off her course.

He's holding her against his chest, breathing in her hair, caressing her back. It's all too chaste to be a hug from Draco. She wants to look up and see if he is possessed, but he pushes her back first.

He is holding her face as if she is made of porcelain, and the sheer adoration she sees in his eyes revives her pain. It is only when he has marred her face with his blood that he takes notice of his cuts, right when he sees the flicker of hurt in her eyes.

"I'm not good for you," he says, and the definite tone in his voice scares the living daylights out of her.

He surprises her by smiling when he feels the pull. "Whenever you need me, love," he whispers, "wherever you are," he kisses her hands, "until the day I die"; he lets her go.

She's too confused to react, he's holding his wand, fixing her window, apologising for the mess, summoning another pillow, and pocketing the shrunk one he still held in his robes. He vanishes the bloodstains he's left on her covers, and casts a glamour on the ones on his robes; something that almost escaped her notice in her disconcerted state.

Almost, being the keyword.

He feels her irritation, cracking another smile, "It's just some scratches," he says. "I'll get a shower as soon as I get back."

She wants to laugh, but opts for waiting until he realises he is not going anywhere; he is not going anywhere for the same reason she was forced here in the first place. She doesn't like the word need, she prefers to think she's not done with him yet. He interrupts her thoughts, nevertheless.

"I'll go blend in your curtains before your roommates arrive," he starts, and she knows he's right, she knows that the first thing her roommates will want to do is change their clothes, and she now needs him gone. She snaps at him. "You didn't seem to mind if they arrived before I came."

His smirk still has a ghost of a smile in it. "I still don't, but I thought _you_ would."

She knows he meant to say he _knew_ she would mind, but he's already hugging her goodbye, and before she can push his arms away, he's turned serious once more and says something that stops her train of thought, baffling her again.

"You chose right," he says, "he" – he shakes his head, and corrects himself – "they, they will keep you safe," and he kisses her forehead.

"This isn't over," she says, and is disgusted by how it doesn't come out as harsh as she would have liked.

"You can't imagine how elated that makes me."

He's out the window, and she wants to squash the butterflies in her stomach with a blasting curse.

It's not hours into the night that she finally understands what his statement really meant. He is letting go of her; and she starts to hyperventilate, yet not five minutes pass before he's outside her window.

She lets him in, and he places her back in bed, draws her curtains shut, and casts a silencing charm before she cracks up and sobs like there is no tomorrow.

He doesn't say anything, he just kisses her, and the sheer power of the kiss makes her draw a breath. The sheer adoration of every one of his touches makes her take in the moment. "Whenever you need me, love," he whispers again, "wherever you are," he continues, "until the day I die."

He's kissing her temple, and holding her as if he didn't have a right to hold her. It's the sadness with which he brands every calming caress that makes her snap.

She draws away from him and pushes him back. She looks him down with eyes full of unshed tears and sneers at him. "You," she says, "you haven't apologised."

He lets her draw away, he lets her breathe in, lets her drink in her fury, because she has every right to it.

"Well... out with it!" she growls.

He looks up, she is crossing her arms, bathed in tears, red in the face; and he wishes he could feel more of her fury before he answers. "There is not an apology for what I did to you, Hermione. It's just too wrong, love. I am wr-"

"Don't you dare say it!" She hits him, "Don't you dare say it, you rotten bastard!" She sobs in his chest. "You are not wrong for me!"

He shushes her, holds her. "I'm sorry I had to hurt you in order for me to understand. I'm just too much of an arse, I guess."

"Shut up!" she screams. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! You are not leaving me!"

"Never," he whispers in a calming, soothing tone, "never."

She breathes in, the way he likes her to do it, like drawing strength from him, like finding peace. "You should know I'm not as strong, Hermione."

Her chuckle feels bittersweet, "Thank God for small mercies."

"When the time comes, love, I want you to forget what you said to me at the Manor. I don't want you by my side until the end of time, I want you happy until the end of time; you hear me? I want you happy, I want you at peace; I want you whole. I don't want you to come for me. When you can no longer find me, Hermione, I want you to find piece with whoever makes you happier."

She chuckles. "When I can no longer find you, Draco," she solemnly swears, as if she'd first see Voldemort dancing the conga.

"I will always want you, Hermione. I will always need you, love. But there is nothing, nothing you hear me, that I want more than to know you are whole, safe, and sound."

"When the time comes," he continues, "I want you to remember my priorities. In my world, you are prey, Hermione, and I am a liability. I hurt the people around me, Hermione, that's what I do best. I am not a protector, I'm a hunter; I cause pain."

"I don't need protection, Draco. You are not my babysitter; that is fine."

"But I do, I need you safe, sound. Alive. I want you happy."

"You make me happy."

He raised an eyebrow with the shadow of sarcastic chuckle.

"So you are not a ray of sunshine all the time, Draco. Nobody is."

"You deserve better."

"It's my choice. I choose you. It's always been you-"

"You never chose me, Hermione, I was the hand you were dealt. It's not fair to you."

"I would never have it any other way. I felt blessed with you, I never questioned why. I never regretted having you. You can never leave me, Draco Malfoy."

"I– he exhaled, exasperated – I said I never would. You will always have me, Hermione. I will always be yours. But you, you have to get something better, someone as loyal as you, someone you don't have to hide, someone who-"

The slap to his face didn't surprise him. "_You _– she hissed, nauseated- who the hell do you think you are? Who do you think _I_ am?!"

"I cheated on you," he breathed calmly.

"And you want me to come down to your level?" she spat in indignation.

"Wouldn't dream of it, you are just too stubborn for your own good; but you deserve better than me, damn it!"

Another slap. "That was never your call, you bloody bastard! You never-"

He flattened her against the bed, hands around her head, a thumb on her lips. He closed his eyes. "I am setting you free, I am letting you go; Sweet Circe, Hermione, I am telling you to go and opt for one of the long list of better suitors waiting for you. You-"

"Screw you!" she roared in his face, "I never asked to be free of you! I don't want you to let me go! You can't get rid of me that easily!" She had pushed him off her, and was sobbing and screaming at the top of her lungs, pressing on his chest.

"You never asked, Hermione; you _needed_ to be rid of me."

"Shut up!" she snapped at him, "You don't know what you are talking about! You are just being a stupid, stupid arse, like you always are." He could hear her voice start to break. "Well, I don't care! You can go fuck all the pureblood whores you want, you won't ever leave me!" She wiped her tears with a furious movement of her wrist. "Because I know, Draco, I know how I make you feel, I know what makes you tick, I know all your layers, I know all your sins, and I know you belong to me!"

She was a mess of tears, yelps and heart-wrenching sobs when he whispered, "I didn't say I was going to go get myself a whore, Hermione. There's no one in this world that could compare to you. I wouldn't dream of it."

"God, Draco, I should go and do it, just to spurn you. I should go and let you have a taste of your own medicine. I should shut your mouth, and your stupid advices, just to teach you," she sobbed even more. "I can't, Draco, I don't want to. Even if I could hurt you like that, there is no one in the world I could want the way I want you. What? You just expected me to kiss someone's lips, to hold hands with them – she wept, cleaning the tears from her eyes trying to cover her disgust – and what, feel the same?" She let go, realising for the first time that _he_ had, he had done exactly that, he had been able to kiss someone's lips, without the nausea, without the mere thought of it making him want to crawl out of his skin. He had done it, and it carved another dent in her already shattered heart.

Her knees gave out, her whole body felt too heavy to support it. "I can't," she whispered. "I couldn't even if I wanted to."

He gave a mirthless laugh and went to her. "I've done it again, see?" He held her close. "I didn't want her; I didn't enjoy it, Hermione. I was just getting the job done." He cleaned her tear-stained face with his thumb. "When it comes to you, I could kill, maim, or do it with a Blast-Ended Skrewt if it came to it." She half smiled between her tears. "I'm a deranged soul, I break things, Hermione; when I feel cornered, I snap." He held her head up, to look at her. "I just thought you would be different, you have loved other people. You have a heart big enough to hold the world in it. I thought you could-"

"You thought I could snog Harry?" she snorted, "As much as you can snog your own mother, Draco."

"It's just you, Hermione. For me, it's just you. I love you. I cherish you. I just have you. Everyone else, I could live without."

"That is why you freaked out."

He gulped through clenched jaws. "I was afraid, I thought you should learn; I wanted even ground again. I wanted to make you think you could lose me too."

"You are never getting rid of me."

"I know better now."

"You know shit, Malfoy; you don't know what's best for me. It's not your choice. It was never up to you."

"I know what I want, and what I need. Don't underestimate me on this, Hermione."

"Do as you please, I can take it."

"I know you can," he stated, and kissed her, long and hard. He took her with all his might, with all his heart; he took her whole. He absorbed her soul. He drank her essence in that one act where he could be complete and make her complete.

He held her through the night, without batting an eye. He was the first thing she saw when she woke up, and he relished in the peace the sight of him gave her.

She made him come many other nights following that one, she made him stay throughout the night in every single one of them, and had him find her in his quarters on even more occasions.


	5. Chapter 5

**Bond**

**Chapter 5 **by WickedDiSaster

The following summer the wards of Malfoy Manor changed, blasting her ten feet away from his property against a large trunk, where she hit her head. He was heading to his library when it happened. He felt her slipping off the edge of his soul as she lost consciousness.

That would be the last time he went through it. It took him five minutes to get to her. Five minutes in which he didn't know if he'd find her there anymore. His house had become a ticking bomb for her kind and he hadn't even been aware. He couldn't even begin to imagine what had happened to her; if his father had found her, or if she'd encountered something in the woods.

He shook her awake and put pressure on her bleeding head. The shock alone of feeling his fright numbed her dizziness. She recognised the mess, the jumbled weight of feelings she had encountered in her bedroom so many moons ago. She could feel the glimmer of hope expanding in his chest, as he felt her within the edges of his soul again. He was mad, he was beyond angered; he was furious.

"I'm ok," she breathed.

He exploded. "Shut your trap! You had no business being here! Absolutely nothing, you hear me! You have no excuse to- What the hell were you thinking?! This is not a playground! My world is not a playground for you! You can't come barging here for a visit whenever it pleases you!" He was spitting fire. "You don't come here; you can't just barge in to see me, damn it!"

"It's ok, Draco," she looked at her blood smeared fingers, seeing double. "I know how to heal the wound, I just need to focus." She went for her wand.

He snatched it from her hands as if it were fire. He casted the healing spells himself before she could protest.

"You bloody stubborn wench! You are absolutely out of your freaking mind! You have no fucking clue-"

"I'm sorry, Draco. I didn't mean to-"

"You don't get to apologise!" he roared, "You don't get a say in this! You don't ever come near me again; you fucking hear me, Granger?! Never!"

The deafening silence that followed his statement drowned every other thought in her mind, every need to appease him. The definite tone to his words, the promise behind them, choked her. He had both their wands in his hand when her accidental magic manifested in the form of weeds extending to wrap around his ankles.

She was terrified of him telling the truth, and she knew he was. She tried to ignore the loud buzzing sound in her head just so she could hear her own words. "Draco, you don't have to do this. I'm sorry, ok? I didn't mean for all this to happen. I just wanted to see you. You can't shut me out because of this. I promise I won't come back to your place ever again, but, you know, Draco, you can't do this to me. I won't let you."

When she opened her eyes, the weed had wrapped him all the way up his waist, keeping him in a crouching position next to her. He was seething.

"Draco, you cannot keep me away from you just because of this. It was an accident. That's all it was."

He ripped the weed with his bare hands, and lifted himself up, pulling her with him. "Hurry! We have to get you out of here."

He covered her bloody shirt with his jacket before the Knight Bus stopped in front of them. He helped her inside and took a place in the opposite side of the bus. He didn't look in her direction until they reached her home.

She spent the night cuddled against his chest, and every afternoon she thought of him, she found him in her bedroom, waiting for her with an annoyed expression on his face.

School next term was a whole different business altogether. He avoided her at all costs. He fumed every time he felt her close by, and gods forbid she ever step foot in his turf, for as much as patrolling.

He'd pull her into a cupboard, block her path or right out shove her back to where she'd come from. Visiting him, in his own words was, "out of the question."

It wasn't that she wanted to get on his nerves. The reason she kept coming back to him, what made her use the excuse of patrols to get near him, it was because she missed him. She missed the smell of his scent, of his touch; she missed the peace he gave her.

She had come to crave for the nightmares that brought him to her, and he waited until she couldn't take it anymore to show up at her windowpane.

His snapping anger didn't even faze her when she finally had him. She didn't pay attention to his rants anymore. She had learnt to enjoy the sound of his voice, ignoring the words behind it. She focused on his skin, on the way his hands felt on her waist, even if they only kept her at arm's length. When she had him this close, she didn't have to wait long to feel his lips on her skin. She just had to wait, breathe him in, take a hold of his hair, and rest her cheek on his heart. His quickening heartbeat soothed her nerves.

He was always mad at her, his kisses were always full of his reproach, but he still touched her as if she were porcelain, he still held her like she was shimmering gold under his hands.

She burrowed her head in the crook of his neck and wrapped herself around him when they were over, always wishing she didn't have to let go. She always asked him to spend the night with her, and most of the times he emitted an infuriated sigh and pulled away, but sometimes, sometimes when it was too much to take, he'd kiss the top of her head and nod.

She lived for those days.

She should have known better than to put herself in danger, she knows. He was mad enough about what he called her Stupid Secret Army. She should have known he would try to stop her, should have known he wouldn't take well to her attempts to trick Umbridge. Nevertheless, what happened next, how could she have known that his father would be there, that she would be hurt, how could she have helped that?

He spent the rest of her recovery sneaking into the infirmary, never saying anything, never letting her speak. He limited himself to watching her, and she knew how it soothed him. She could feel how just looking at her breathing eased his soul.

He made her promise not to go looking for him that summer, told her he'd be accompanying his mother on a trip to get away from the gossip. She didn't believe him when he said she wouldn't be able to find him. She just about lost her sanity when that's exactly what happened. His property didn't blast her out because, unlike before, she simply couldn't come near fifty meters to any path that took her to it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Bond**

**Chapter 6 **by WickedDiSaster

Sixth year was the worst of them all.

After being able to take a breath of air, and actually feel it reach her lungs without adding pressure to her chest, she realised that short glimpses and glances was all she would get from him. He did not say one word, not one explanation of what made him act this way. Why or what was making him this scared; why he felt like a ghost of himself. Who had told him he was cheese and let the mice out after him?

Having Harry jump on every theory of conspiracy on his regard didn't do much for her already tampered nerves. Worse, was the fact that no matter what she did, she just _couldn't_ find him, nor make him come to her. She felt beyond need for him; she felt desperate. She couldn't _go_ to him. The same force that had once drawn her to him, now made her stay put, and pushed her out of the way.

When had she become a threat; when had she stopped being his rock? She was supposed to soothe him, and now that he needed her the most, she couldn't be there for him.

Then it clicked. She figured out that he was trying to protect her. That he couldn't bear to have her near, and that could only mean he'd become a ticking bomb.

She breathed once, twice, and let go. She didn't even dare think he could be in danger, that he could stop existing. She could take not knowing where he was, as long she knew he would continue being.

It was just a second – the second the thought of his peril invaded her mind – before the world started crumbling all around her. One second, and he was there again, a few floors above her floor, in a room she knew all too well, palpable, tangible; one second, and she could feel him there again.

The dread freezing the blood in her veins didn't stop until a piece of parchment appeared on her bed and one of her tears stained the three words shaping his handwriting. "I am fine."

She scrambled to her nightstand for a quill with lightning speed.

"You are anything but," she wrote.

"Back off, I just need time."

She wanted to reply but the paper disintegrated before her eyes, and the second where she could feel him was long gone.

She understood then, on the scheme of things, she at least "understood." She breathed once, twice, thrice.

He was just too worried for her. It made sense.

Voldemort had become a real threat now; it was understandable, and it was bearable because it wouldn't last forever. They had Dumbledore, they had Harry, and they would win. Because like the Headmaster said, the alternative wasn't worth living for.

The day Harry casted Sectumsempra on Draco, Hermione didn't feel more than a twinge in their connection, a millisecond of strained hesitation before his resolute resolve settled back in. She never felt his location, didn't feel him hit the ground, or the blood that left his body. She couldn't tell the moment Snape healed him, the three times he used the spell to heal his severed chest, or his walk to the Hospital Wing.

She never felt him blacking out.

Draco knew the second she heard the news because she overruled his need to keep her out, and he let her. It eased her; not enough to keep her at arm's length, but he needed her just as much as she needed him, maybe even more. She didn't question him. He didn't let her. She didn't press him, she kissed all his tensions away. All his trepidation and terrors died under her caresses.

The night their Headmaster passed away, she wanted Draco to know she didn't blame him; she wanted him to know it was ok, that she was proud of him. That she was afraid for him.

But the alternative was still not worth living for, and she had to prepare for it more than ever now.

Before school ended, she went to the Room of Requirement and picked up a piece of parchment there. She tapped it twice and wrote, "Be safe."

Before the letters vanished from the parchment, she folded it and placed it in her chest pocket.

The next time they saw each other would be at his Manor and he denied having ever seen them to his aunt. She recognised at that point, how easy it had been for him to keep her at bay. When his life was at stake, she could make him back off and recoil in the farthest corner that she pleased.

He had never felt more contrite, desperate and trapped in his own body. He recovered his sanity again when she left the Manor. And they kept going, each bearing their own worrisome thoughts.

The day of the final battle, she'd been too worried with Horcruxes when Draco stopped Crabbe from blasting their cover as they tried to get the Diadem. When all hell broke loose and the fire made them split, she might have lost her sanity, but his fear for her safety still overcame her need to go to him. She might have jumped from the broom as she flew over the flames and recognised the Fiendfyre. She had never before felt unable to move, to think, or scream at the top of her lungs until then. She had never loved Harry more than when he veered his broom back. She could only breathe again when they had them. When _she_ had him. When they were _all_ safe.

He was mourning but even then, her relief overrode his grief. On the scheme of things, it could have been worse, it could always be worse.

The battle became a blur soon after that, and they both let go, until it was finally, miraculously, _over_.

She let him go take care of everything with his family. She had too many things to take care of herself. Before he left though, he caught up with her in a passageway and kissed her, with all his might, with the promise of a future. She could feel how elated he felt by everything, by the relief of not having her peril looming over him.

All said and done, she spent the remainder of her time with the Weasley family, and although she considered it too risky to get her parents from Australia, she decided it was safe enough to go back to Hogwarts. This time, she would go accompanied only by Ginny, and a particular Slytherin, who'd had a taste of his own medicine when he couldn't visit her on enemy's ground at the Weasleys'.

It would be the best year of her life.

Or so she thought.


	7. Chapter 7

**Bond **

**Chapter 7 **by WickedDiSaster

The period before school started took a strenuous toll on Draco. His family kept trying to save face at whatever cost, and this included having their son betrothed to the best suitor. It had taken a lot from Draco to convince them that Hogwarts would give them a better chance at knowing who this suitor should be. They'd been, after all, isolated from society for so long.

It was his inability to visit Hermione however, that got his nerves on end. He knew she had just as much on her plate after the war, and tried to avoid thinking about her at all costs, but trying not to miss her was something else entirely. He hated adding stress to her already busy schedule, but he eventually ended up strolling back to her.

His life had always revolved around her after all.

He would find himself lurking the surroundings of Weasley's property without knowing how he got there, trying to stray as far from it as he could, and having absolutely no clue as to what he would say in regards to his whereabouts if questioned. He forced himself to stay in the nearby town. He knew that since it had become Potter's new headquarters, the Burrow turned into one of the best-protected places in the Wizarding world.

Knowing it and bearing it were two different things, however; and even though he knew his fortuitous strolls made him suspicious at best – and he had no credible excuse to be there – just knowing he was as close to her as he could be eased his worries.

Sometimes, when she felt him there, she would leave Weasley's house with the pretence of going to the town's library. She would take the Floo there, and then Apparate back to the closest area near her house in Muggle London, where she would wait for him to Apparate too.

He made her forget any concerning worries, or prepared speech on his reckless behaviour. He'd press her against him and kiss her with all the fire he had. When she was with him, she couldn't remember all the reasons why they couldn't allow these moments.

Draco grew fond of all the aspects of the Muggle world that made it possible for them to go unnoticed; from the restaurants and cafes scattered around, to the underground and the dark large cinemas that polluted the city.

The day they boarded the train back to Hogwarts, he could barely morph his beaming smile into his trademark smirk when Pansy Parkinson met up with him just a few steps inside the train.

He used the excuse of finding an empty compartment to accidentally stumble upon Hermione's, and when he did, his elated mood was shortly drowned by her disappointment at the sight of his company. Draco sent Pansy to find the rest of the gang on the spot.

Once Parkinson was gone, Draco used the time to be properly excited with his newly found prey. Hermione had a hard time keeping her smile at bay, or focusing on Ginny – sitting on the other side.

"Anything we can help you with, Malfoy?" Ginny barked.

Draco's smirk did not falter even when she drawled his name. "I was just wondering if you had stumbled upon an empty compartment on your way here."

Ginny looked at him with scrutinizing disbelief, but it was Hermione who answered, "We took the first one we found, but I'm sure you'll find more down the hall."

"Right, down the hall," Draco's eyes glittered with what Ginny mistook as malice. "Always a pleasure to see you, Weaslette," he said, disappearing from their compartment.

Ginny slammed the door shut behind him, and turned to Hermione, who hid behind the book of Magical Herbs she had been reading. "What do you think is his problem? Think that his life with Voldie left him forever scarred in the head or something?"

Hermione swallowed at the thought of his life during the battle, and replied a bit sourly, "I wouldn't know what he went through, Ginny, but it sounded to me like he was trying to make peace."

"Yeah, right," Ginny slumped back into her seat.

"He didn't rat us out in his Manor, Ginny," Hermione pressed on.

"Which is one of the reasons his family is not rotting in Azkaban," Ginny countered. "Bet he's just trying to use us to save what's left of the Malfoy Pride," Ginny sneered.

"Or," Hermione added, "he's preparing the ground for when you two have to work on your Head duties."

"Please don't remind me," Ginny groaned, but Hermione was already up and excusing herself from the compartment for a short trip to the loo.

She hadn't even reached the door of Draco's compartment when he pulled her inside, locking and silencing the door behind her.

"Thought you'd never come," he whispered as they parted lips.

"It wasn't that long, Draco," she rolled her eyes.

He nuzzled her head and made a sound that stated how much he disagreed with that statement.

"You're going to have to start treating her better, you know," she whispered.

"I thought that was what I did."

"Her name is not Weaslette, it's Ginny." He raised an eyebrow in her direction. "Or well, Weasley for you, I suppose."

"Weasley is her brother, love. Why are we talking about them now?"

"Because," Hermione pulled back a little, "you two will be working together, and it's in your best interest to gain her trust."

He looked at her hard. "Is that so?"

Hermione sighed, "No, I don't want you to take advantage of my friend, Draco, but it was something that she mentioned and well, she's right, you know. It would work in the advantage of you, your family, and well, if you play it right, us."

Draco smiled at her last words, "Now that, darling, I can work with." He twirled her around, and made them both land on the bench.

"How much time do you reckon we've got?" Draco asked.

"I told her I was going to the bathroom."

"And we've been wasting our time talking about her?!" He said, before kissing her long and hard.

Half an hour into their arrival, McGonagall summoned Draco and Ginny for a short debriefing and soon after, she left them alone to arrange the details with the Prefects.

"Well," Ginny started, "there's no reason why we should change the routine of past years, and everyone else knows the drill, so we just have to put the new Prefects up to date."

"And with past years, you are of course obviating the last one, right?"

"Of course!" She glared at him. "There's absolutely no need for-"

"I know, Weasley, I was just reminding you of how to state it to the Prefects." He opened the door of the compartment, "After you."

Ginny looked at him slightly bewildered.

"Unless you prefer to summon the Prefects with magic?" Malfoy offered.

"No, no, that's fine, it is more personal this way," Ginny replied hastily, while Draco refrained from smirking and pointing out that way she didn't have to spend as much time with him.

"Let's split and we meet here in ten, then, I take Ravenclaws and Slytherins, you take care of the rest."

Ginny shot him a scathing look at his choice.

Draco raised an eyebrow, "Unless, you'd rather swap?"

"No, that's fine," she spat.

That was the longest interaction between them before they were introduced to their new quarters, and Draco regretted more than ever that Hermione had given up the position.

"Disappointed, Malfoy?" Ginny interrupted his thoughts with a tone of disapproval.

"Don't take it personally, Weaslette, I'm sure you're not exactly ecstatic at the thought of sharing your space with me."

"My name is not Weaslette," she spat.

"My apologies, it's just, your brother, it will need some getting used to, I guess. And then it's bound to change to Mrs. Potter soon, isn't it?"

She gaped at him. "That, that's none of your business!" she tried to snap at him.

"No, it isn't, Weasley," Draco said, summoning his broom. "I will get out of your hair now, and let you explore our quarters first. I'm going for a ride." As he reached for the door however, Ginny shrieked.

"What in hell is wrong with you?!"

"But I thought you had already figured it out, Weasley," he replied, closing the door behind him.

Hermione was not too happy about how he made fun of her friend, but she was beyond elated that he was trying to befriend her. Draco's broom ride turned into a quick visit to her dorm, because waiting for her roommates to fall asleep took almost forever, and then Hermione insisted he go back to his own room.

They soon agreed to meet in the Prefects' bathroom or the hall outside his quarters, and there was always the excuse to visit Ginny, that would let Hermione sneak into his bedroom later.

Ginny was beyond herself with his attitude towards her. It wasn't enough that when Hermione visited, he would stay rooted to their common room to do "homework," but that he would actually choose those moments to joke with them, and that Hermione would _comply_ was testing her sanity. It wasn't until she threatened to take Hermione to her bedroom that he decided to retire for the evening and even then, Hermione would give her a disapproving look.

"He's making an effort, Ginny, and you should do the same," she would say.

They were now patrolling the halls as Heads and he had picked up a parchment that had slipped from her pocket.

"I believe this is yours," he had said and that had been the last straw for her.

"Seriously, Malfoy, what is your problem? Civil, I can understand; barely, but I can, but this? This?! We are not going to be friends, Malfoy. What is it with you?!"

"One can always try," Draco shrugged, with his smirk unperturbed. He enjoyed far too much her discomfort with him at times.

"Malfoy!" Ginny snapped, "Why are you doing this?"

"But you already know the answer to that, Weasley," Draco responded calmly, "I can't afford to be anything other than kind to your lot. I just can't."

She gaped, "Is that it?" She seemed relieved. "I kne-"

"Oh, don't discredit yourself, Weasley, you are a force to behold; I don't think I could have been as nice to your brother," he paused for effect, "or your fiancé for that matter." He smirked again.

She groaned.

He laughed, he actually laughed, shocking her to the core and stunning her at the same time. "Don't beat yourself over this, Weaslette, this could work in your advantage as well. If being nice to your side worked so much as to uplift a bit of the disgrace in which my family has fallen, no other pureblood family would think twice about joining your 'noble' cause. Why else do you think Hermione has been so open to my approaches? As you well know, my family gave every bit of knowledge on the scattered Death Eaters after the battle; it would do you good for other families to do the same," Draco reasoned. "I'll leave you to ponder that, we've covered more than usual already; it's time we head back."


	8. Chapter 8

**Bond **

**Chapter 8 **by WickedDiSaster

Hermione had already heard about their conversation with exaggerated hilarious remarks from Draco when Ginny approached her. She all but validated and approved of Draco's scheme when Ginny brought it up. She felt a bit shocked that she did it without an ounce of remorse over playing her friend that way, but Draco could frequently rub on you in such ways, she mused.

Soon, Ginny's smiles and retorts to his pranks flowed naturally between them, that is, until the redhead caught eye of the glances Draco threw Hermione; and her overprotective nature went on overdrive.

By then, Draco had been trying to persuade his progenitors of the convenience of his newfound friendship with the Weaslette. They agreed without reservations, and had the gall to suggest that he took it a step further with the freckled redhead. He argued that taking the hero's bride-to-be from Potter's grasp would hardly work to their advantage, and added how disgusted he felt with them for even suggesting it. He had no qualms telling them that he shuddered to think they could be desperate enough to take the next best suitor in line.

He had all but hinted in Hermione's direction when his mother's reassuring owl arrived, saying she wouldn't let his father involve him with a Mudblood, even if getting their prestige back were to depend on it. He couldn't help his glee when 'his father,' in a fit of outrage, sent him a message contradicting his mother. Of course, his father would be all prone to his sacrifice once the idea settled in his mind. He replied, in what he hoped was the most sour mood, that he would see what he could do about it.

It was just his luck that Ginny had been intercepting all these letters and making magical copies to show the ferret's true colours to Hermione.

She chose to do this one afternoon in which they were laughing and joking in their common room. She summoned the parchments from her bedroom and gloated as Draco's laugh fell dead on his lips.

Ginny grinned at him, as if she held between her hands proof that he was Voldemort reincarnated himself. Draco sighed, recognising the magical copies of his letters. He put his hands behind his head and lying back on the couch, he said, "Well, out with it, Weasley, you must have been savouring this moment for a long time now."

Hermione turned a concerned eyebrow in his direction, and he was about to whisper a silent apology for botching it up with her friend, when Ginny handed her the letters with a, "You should read this."

Ginny expected lots of shades of fury from her friend, but none of them matched the slow smile and elated mood in which Hermione finished the letters. "Oh, Draco!" Hermione enveloped him in a tight hug. Ginny's face fell in disbelief and disappointment. She could see that, while Draco hadn't expected this reaction from her friend either, her elated mood and later hug did not come as much of a shock to him. Ginny choked.

"That was brilliant of you!" Hermione added, detaching herself from Draco.

"Thought you would see it that way," he calmly replied. "Sorry I didn't mention anything before," he spoke meaningfully, "I wasn't sure how you would take it, and I didn't know if my parents would fall for it."

Hermione was beaming at him, and he had to remind her they had an audience. "I was afraid you would take Ginny's side when she brought up my scam."

"Oh!" Hermione collected herself and turned to her bewildered friend. "He had already hinted at it," she lied, "Don't you see, Ginny? How much faster would things go if the most renowned pureblood stuck-ups," Draco chortled, "decided to have their only heir in a public relationship with a Muggle-born? No pureblood would waste time in picking sides, and what do they have to offer that Harry and Ron have been dying to get?" she asked her friend. "Information, Ginny, information!" She let much of her ecstatic joy show in her last words.

"And you think," Ginny swallowed, "this is 'brilliant'?"

"You have to admit, Ginny, the way he played his parents was outrageous!"

"And you don't care about the sacrifices you'd be making for this, this ruse?"

"I'm already doing nothing for the guys, Ginny. Choosing my education and letting them go on their own has been nagging my conscience for a long time. This, this would be the least I could do!"

"But what about Ron?" Ginny countered, making Hermione's mood sink at once.

"Ginny," Hermione said, "Ron's confused feelings have been going on for long enough, it will be better for our friendship if we don't ever engage in that sort of relationship."

"But you guys kissed," Ginny continued, oblivious to the way Draco reacted to this piece of news. "He couldn't stop talking about it all summer."

Hermione could feel the blood running cold in Draco's body as he heard Ginny's statement. "That was just the heat of the battle, Ginny, I just wanted to hug him, and he mistook my advances and well, I didn't know how to stop it." Hermione's pleading tone directed to more than one person.

"So you let him get his hopes up?" Ginny countered.

"I'll get back to my room now," Draco interrupted in a stiff voice, "if you'll excuse me." He burned the remaining parchments to cinder, "In case they got in the wrong hands, Weasley. I'll leave you two to your problems." He couldn't help closing the door with too much force.

"Draco, wait!" Hermione tried to halt him, but he was already gone and Ginny had gotten in her way and was looking at her with an irritated look that expected an explanation.

"He needed his focus in the battle, Ginny," Hermione started, already resigned to stay, "I tried to explain it when it was all over. This entire ruse, it serves as well to make everything clear, I don't want Ron to hold any delusions of us getting together. He doesn't love me, Ginny. He's just confused."

Ginny put up a fight to her arguments, a fight that lasted more than Hermione could bear, but eventually Ginny got tired too. By the time Hermione got rid of her, Draco was no longer in his room. She knew he was not in the mood to talk to her, so she decided to wait for him in his quarters. With any luck he would think she was still talking with Ginny when he felt her presence close-by.

As she had thought, that was what happened, and he only realised she was there when he finished closing his window and dismounted his broom.

"Draco-"

"What?!" he snapped, "What are you going to say that I don't already know, that you failed to mention this small detail not to hurt my feelings? That you didn't think it a big deal, that you felt nothing, nothing at all! Do you really think anything you say at this point is going to make me feel better?"

"No-"

"Then what? What do you want, Hermione? What are you doing here? Have you even silenced this stupid room? I can't even bloody fight with you with Weaslette across the hall. Fuck!" He threw his broom towards the back of his closet, making it clatter.

Her big doe eyes were answer enough to his question. He opened the door to his room with a flick of his wand.

"Out," he ordered.

Hermione shut the door with a soft click and muttered a quiet 'Silencio', before turning back to him. "No, I won't, Draco. You can yell all you want now, I won't leave."

He threw his cloak against a chair, making it tumble over with the force of the blow. He turned his back to her and he stripped himself of his clothes, leaving her standing there, hopeless.

"Draco," she tried taking a step closer.

He had just landed on his bed making it tremble. "What?" he drawled, subjecting the pillow beneath his head to his anger.

"I," she took another step forwards, "I'm sorry."

"What for? I know you couldn't help it, or it wouldn't have happened." He threw the stubborn pillow to the floor.

"Sorry that I made you this wretched inside," she said, leaning her head against the post of his four-poster bed. "You are taking it better than I hoped."

He rolled and groaned into another pillow before surprising her by sitting up and pulling her to him. Shocked as she was, she wrapped her hands around his neck and scratched his hair as he buried his head in her stomach. "I'm sorry, Draco," she repeated.

"Shh," he said, "don't say it, just, just give me some time, it's going to pass, I promise."

Astounded as she was by his words, feeling the sudden guilt invading his soul made her halt. "Draco, it's not your fault," she said, pulling his face up to hers.

"I know," he kissed one of her palms resting on his cheeks. She sat next to him, staring at his eyes, puzzled. He swallowed. "Let's just rest, ok? It was good you came after all, there's no better calming draught for me than you by my side."

It took no more than the flickering sorrow in his eyes to understand where the guilt came from. She hadn't kissed someone else to hurt him; he, on the other hand, had.

He kissed her then, as soon as the look of understanding crossed her eyes. He kissed her, and crushed her against his bare chest, burrowing a hand in the depth of her curls, and loosening her tie, until he got rid of it and the rest of her garments, just to bathe her in his kisses, and hold her throughout the night. She fell asleep in his arms.

He woke up to the random movement of her fingers on his chest, and the dazed look she had as she stared at him. He kissed the smile forming on her lips, until it turned into a satisfied sigh and she stirred on the bed. "So, it's all better now?"

"As better as it can be," he nodded.

"Do you think we can start celebrating the fact your parents have given you the green light to date me?"

"If I recall well, there wasn't just a green light; my father ordered me to pursue you, my fair lady. All that follows is merely heeding orders." He beamed at her.

Her stunning smile took his mind off anything else.


	9. Chapter 9

**Bond **

**Chapter 9 **by WickedDiSaster

Although Harry and Ron's reactions were much worse than Ginny's – when the latter ratted her out, – having the youngest Weasley on her side during the exhausting argument helped her settle things in her favour at the end. It was one of the hardest and most strenuous fights she'd had with them since the war, but it was all worth it.

Something about making their relationship public made Hermione feel as if she were on cloud nine. They were supposed to take things slow, play out a courtship, and all those things that had never been possible before.

Ginny schemed day in and day out, and the three would gather to have long conversations, in which Hermione spent hours daydreaming at the table, or nodding enthusiastically when Ginny nudged her to re-explain their schemes.

While Ginny felt flabbergasted with such reactions from her friend, Draco turned his smirks into smiles, _real_ smiles; a fact that unsettled Ginny in more ways than she could count. With a firm shake of her head, she would force the gnawing feeling in her stomach out of her system.

Draco had started to stop Ginny from nudging Hermione out of her reveries, arguing that, first, it was a waste of time; and second, it was better if the Gryffindor Queen showed real surprise during their antics.

It had been Draco, as well, who mentioned Granger might just be in love. It was just out of the question that the object of her affections was Draco himself, of course; so Ginny started prodding Hermione to drop the act and be with the boy she really wanted to date.

Hermione would laugh her offers off, and deny such absurd notions from her friend.

Draco opened doors for Hermione, walked her to classes, hung out with her in public places, pulled out chairs, delivered surprise gifts at meals and, supposedly, conspicuous notes during classes.

The Gryffindors acted as if he were personally mocking them, stating loud and clear they did not buy his charade. Glares from them followed him from dawn to dusk. The Slytherins on the other hand, studied each of his actions with awestruck disbelief and barely contained consternation. They all had to be deep in it for one of the oldest pureblood families in history to attempt to regain their status through such means.

Draco manipulated his father into thinking it was _his_ idea to have an old family heirloom delivered during breakfast. He opened it in front of Pansy, who, in her disbelief, shrieked to the heavens what it was, and then handed it to Hermione asking her to be his girlfriend.

The silence in the Great Hall could have echoed the drop of a pin as Hermione's overwhelming "yes" travelled throughout the tables.

Gryffindors pursed their lips through gritted teeth, Hufflepuffs gasped in disbelief, Ravenclaws dropped their jaws and utensils with a loud clank, and Slytherins stilled in their seats, schooling their shock and fright, while a few scurried out of the Hall in a petrified haze.

The rock did not strike bottom until Draco invited his parents for a Quidditch match and introduced Hermione to them, in front of everyone present. Having his mother chant out her rehearsed speech of welcoming to the family with his father at her side, had all the pureblood families positively crawling out of their skin.

Harry's owl the following day screamed of success almost as loud as Pansy's shriek that breakfast morning. Hermione refused to stop their schemes there, nevertheless, alleging it would not be loyal to Draco or his family. Besides, they were prone to find the evidence they craved now that owls with information clogged their department. They had everything from vacation houses the suspects visited as children, to their every habits and hobbies. Hermione argued that now they were prone to give them everything they heard, and maybe even look for rumours for them.

So, no, stopping was far away from Hermione's mind. Her friends and family (the Weasley's) started to worry she would grow real feelings for the treacherous ferret. They had already seen his gallant display on the Quidditch visit, and Hermione's glimmering eyes when it had happened. That was why they had decided to invite him for Christmas, as part of their "scheme".

Having Ginny, their _only_ daughter, address the young Malfoy as Draco had been disconcerting at best, but Hermione's exuberant display of protectiveness, and dare they say it, "affection," towards the ferret was down-right scary.

George – not one to hold his tongue – asked what the deal was with the ferret; didn't he know everyone in the house knew of the charade? Why was he still acting friendly? And dare one say, funny, or gallant?

Hermione tensed while Ginny called out her brother's rudeness. Draco placed a hand on Hermione's shoulder with a reassuring smile, and calmly answered.

"What can I say, Weasley, it's hard to plan something this huge, and not become friends in the process. Ask your sister, why don't you, she was the easiest to crack," Draco smirked.

Ginny laughed and defiantly shrieked, "Was not!" She pointed to Hermione, "She was the one who jumped, literally "jumped", into your arms at the notion of this whole thing."

The three laughed, while the rest of the table remained mute. Ron's fake cough and Hermione's name on Harry's lips interrupted their mirth. Hermione turned first to Draco, who nodded his head indicating he was fine, and then to Ginny to make sure she didn't let the lions corner the snake into a pit. Ginny's confident smile and daring posture made her feel better as she left the room with her two best friends.

The row that followed was fought with teeth, nails and everything else. Hermione prevailed, shocking the other two, when she put their friendship on the line.

Resentful as they looked, it didn't compare to the inner turmoil Draco felt emanating from Hermione. As soon as the silencing spell wore off, and the three returned to the room, Draco pulled her aside, while Ginny shot the other two disapproving glares.

Draco drew her into a comforting hug to everyone's shock, whispering sweet nothings until she first broke down in tears, and then calmed back down to soft sniffles again.

"I bet your parents won't be this difficult," Hermione whispered.

"But that's the thing about honesty, you see? They will be too exhausted keeping up their charade for you." Draco cheerfully replied, making her chuckle.

This action shocked everyone but Ginny, who joked on how relieved she was that after pretending this sort of affection 24/7 at school, it finally came natural to them. This comment caused Hermione to chortle, as Ginny pulled her outside, soothing her shoulders.

Nobody else but Ginny approved of the scene.

Draco walked back to the table to pick up what was left of his plate, calmly staring at everyone's expressions as he took a bite, before turning his attention towards the brooding left-overs of the Golden Trio.

"You should worry about her," Draco told them with a solemn expression on his face, "you should keep worrying for her, you've done an excellent job of protecting her, Potter; but next time, try not to hurt her in the process. Next time, you heed Weasley's instinct and you pull me into that kitchen, not her. Is that clear to you two?"

They were too stunned to move, or nod, so Draco continued, "That's what I thought." He excused himself from the table and followed Ginny out with Hermione's plate in hand. "Now, if you'll excuse me, she must be starving."

After the door closed behind him, Ron broke the silence with a choked, almost painful whimper of, "Blimey, Harry, she was right!"

Harry's expression reminded everyone of that of being under the Cruciatus curse, but it was George who replied,

"Well, when hasn't she ever been?"

The following day, when Draco went back to his parents, Harry threatened him on his way out with, "We'll be watching you, Malfoy."

Draco cheerfully replied with, "I wouldn't settle for anything less from you."

Draco didn't miss two days without taking advantage of his new found privilege of visiting his girlfriend. He had already surprised six Aurors, summoned by the wards he activated on his 'surprise visits.'

After parading her through every magical public corner, and making sure they appeared in every journal his father bribed; they spent their last free day of school in the fanciest restaurant of Wizarding London with his parents.

Despite the security that Harry and Ron enforced on the event, they couldn't do zilch about the reporters, and the place was packed with them.

When their relationship became the favourite topic of every front page in the Wizarding world, Draco moved to the next step. He had been playing the cold, distant boyfriend front for his parents. He knew his father would milk his relationship with the 'Mudblood' for all its worth, and he didn't have to wait long.

His father's instructions came by owl not two months after they returned from Christmas. Lucius wanted the 'Mudblood' to help them get the restrictions to their vaults annulled, and he wanted Draco to use any means at his disposal to do it.

Draco already knew how he would blotch said means at his disposal in their advantage. Now all he needed was to have her on-board with him.

While Draco focused on playing this façade, Hermione had been busy, scheming to make their relationship 'real' to her friends. The first on her plans had been Ginny, whom Hermione had confided that she had real feelings for the obnoxious ferret. Ginny had been ecstatic that Hermione finally admitted it, and vowed to help her make Draco admit to it too, not to mention she was going to help her with her family and Harry.

Hermione had been precisely enjoying one of Ginny's schemes when her happy bubble burst into grey sharp shards.

******Author Notes:** Thanks to everyone who reviewed and/or added this story their favourites.


	10. Chapter 10

**Bond **

**Chapter 10 **by WickedDiSaster

Ginny had planned for Hermione to spend two days under Draco's care on the pretence of being sick. She would take care of the excuses she'd tell the teachers for them, and she had already busied herself with the other details of their ruse.

Now that Hermione entered the second hour of her two-day seclusion with Draco, she kept ranting about how it would not really matter if her friends didn't approve of their relationship; in the end, they would just have to respect her decision.

He interrupted her with a soft murmur in her ear. "What if I knew of a way to make them approve?" He nibbled a spot below the sensitive area.

She tried to suppress the shivers running through her body, "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said breathing on her neck, "I know _just_ what would redeem me in their eyes." He enveloped her earlobe in his mouth, "Just what would make them approve of a marriage."

She knew he was trying to distract her. "And why don't you just tell me?" she moaned, wishing she could sound more frustrated.

"Because, love," he travelled down her neck, "I know you wouldn't like the implications."

He was on her collarbone now, "Oh, god." _If only he would ravish her already._ "I've already lied, tricked and schemed against my friends, Draco, just tell me!" She wished the needy whimpers of her voice sounded more irritated.

"Hmm?" he pretended to ask, making her gasp with an inconspicuous flick of his tongue. She had trouble focusing on her demands.

"Draco!" She groaned. Now if only she knew what she was asking for.

He travelled to her navel. "It would involve," he said between kisses, "getting you pregnant," his hands stopped on her hips, where he currently revered her lower abdomen, "with my child." He raised imploring eyes, begging her to say yes.

She stiffened all over. "Draco, that, that's not-" she started to voice her refusals.

He pushed himself up to stare at her face to face. "I love you, Hermione, I'm irrevocably in love with you, and you love_ me_."

"But we're not-"

"What? Economically stable? I'm bloody rich, remember. Emotionally mature? We've been through a war. If it didn't teach you that life is too fucking short, I don't know what will. I know you have plans and goals, but I promise you, Hermione, this will not hinder them." She was about to protest here, but he stopped her. "Yes, it makes things harder, but it's nothing you couldn't handle, and I'd be there every step of the way, because I could, because we wouldn't have to hide."

"That's no reason to have a child, Draco."

"_We _are reason enough, Hermione; _you_ are reason enough. Having you as a mother would be reason enough to be born. I know you want one. Yes, not now, but now would be safe. My father is not going to stay powerless forever. Now that he has the family name, it's a matter of time until he gets new assets, even if we don't get him the vaults." His pleadings became more frantic. "He would make sure you had a miscarriage; hell, he'd make you unable to have children, period! He could make it look like a magical accident, like a Death Eater hate crime. We have to act now that we have the leverage; now that it's in his best interests to have us marry, to keep you in the picture," he was begging now. "He wouldn't make it look like a mistake; he'd make sure ours looked like secret marriage plans, make it look like our Christmas dinner was really an engagement or my proposal."

He'd been too focused on getting it all out to notice the realisation in her eyes, until she voiced it. "You were going to do this with or without my permission," she accused him in a whisper.

He cursed her for knowing him so well. He didn't say a word against her statement; he knew there was nothing he could say at this point. He had said too much.

"You are still going to do this anyway!" she raised her voice.

He swallowed, "It's," he licked his lips, "it's my firstborn, I don't want it to be like this."

"But you are going to make it be like this if you need to," she stared him down.

"But I'm going to make sure he has a mum, and that she is safe," he replied with imploring eyes.

"Even if you had to lie to her! What, Draco, were you planning to counter-spell my potions, trick me into drinking a fertility one, perhaps? Did you really think I wouldn't realise?!"

He took a step closer to her with a look in his eyes that bared all his guilt. "I know you, Hermione. I know how smart, how loyal and how caring you are." He allowed himself a second before continuing, "I wasn't going to need more than two of your fertile days without your wand."

Her eyes widened in horror, "You couldn't-, Ginny planned this, not you! Accio wand!" Her wand made a rattling noise against one of the drawers of his nightstand, where it stayed trapped. She followed the sound, kneeling next to it and focusing on her wandless magic as she whispered, "Alohomora." She knew it wouldn't work even before the word left her mouth.

He looked at her from his four poster bed, arms crossed over his bare chest. "What are you doing?" his cold tone interrupted her focus.

She turned to look at him with her eyes full of betrayal; she was wearing his shirt and clutching it close against her body. The sight made his resolve waver.

"What would you have of me, Hermione?" He knelt in front of her. "Should I settle with hiding again, settle with the stupid pretences: a fake breakup; an engagement to some stupid pureblood twit? Or is it that you'll have me renounce my family and hide with your parents in Australia? I didn't plan this, damn it! I never dreamt this, you and your ideas! Must I go back to faking everything again? Fuck, I never wanted a child, they are just another family duty, but to have a child with you, Hermione, bloody hell!" he exhaled his crushed hope.

"Before the war, I was prepared to rid you of any ideas of motherhood," he whispered with a defeated tone. "I always knew you'd want one, but during the battle, I promised myself that if we lived through it, I'd be prepared to have you adopt, or fuck it, have it with someone else; I knew how important this was for you." He sighed despondently. "But then you came up with all this. I never imagined using you to raise my family from shame, you are too damn sacred for the idea to have crossed my mind; but then you mentioned being accepted and all this freaking scheming. I can't, I don't-, I know you want this," he grabbed her by the arms, "why are you, what are you-," he looked at her still form exhaling a breath as he gave up.

'_So much for being able to go through with this_,' he thought.

He knew that were her peril real, he'd be able to crush her lips, bend her will and have her scream his name in passion before he had her; make her forget her name until the spell made him certain they had conceived.

He knew he would be able to go through with it, had the idea not made her this wretched. It tasted too much like what she felt in that forsaken bathroom during fourth year. He couldn't force her, knowing he was able to deal with whatever ordeal lay ahead. He would be able to break their relationship when it was time, when it wasn't safe; it wouldn't be harder than the war. He knew it would hurt her when his parents finally chose a betrothal, but she knew him too well, knew how he felt about her; she had said it herself, she was the one who made him tick. He would pay for it when she finally was with child, not his child. He would deal with it when it came.

Or so he told himself. Maybe if the idea hadn't crossed his mind, if he hadn't pictured it so clearly, if the prospect of a child with her hadn't materialized within his grasp; maybe it wouldn't hurt this much.

He kissed her to numb the pain. He forced the kiss the way he did when they were kids. The memory brought hilarity to his thoughts. He wished he wasn't giving up on so much with it. She stopped the fight and gave into his lips after a while, the way she did when they were young. He pulled away, and broke the kiss as abruptly as he started it. It was so easy to get lost in her.

He lifted her to the bed and lay next to her, both arms behind his head, staring into space in the infinite silence ahead.

She had stopped listening to his excuses a long time ago. She had known from a very young age how he could hurt her, how he would break her if given the chance. She had already lived through it once, and it wasn't that she had not forgiven him, but she had also accepted that when it came to her, Draco was able to cross any line, including hers. She didn't need to hear all his reasons, she knew he needed very little to justify his actions. It didn't matter that this one line he meant to cross involved something as sacred to her as this. It didn't matter that she would never use this as means to an end, no matter what, not even her own life. She would never opt to have her first child through means of coercion.

Hence, she didn't listen to his excuses; she didn't need to hear any more of what had brought about his decision. She knew it wouldn't alter the outcome, she couldn't change his mind. He would do it all the same, no matter what; he'd hurt her again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Bond **

**Chapter 10 – Part two **by WickedDiSaster

She spent a long time waiting for his advances, spent hours trying to convince herself that maybe she could stop his advances, that if she fought hard enough, he wouldn't be able to bend her will with his touches. She spent yet more time thinking how she would reject him, and what she would tell him if he touched her, even when she knew she'd never hurt him that way.

Night came and nothing happened. She remained facing the opposite direction, thinking perhaps he'd fallen asleep, and then she, herself, fell asleep.

She woke up leaning against his chest, cursing herself for searching for comfort in his arms yet again. Waking up with him was one of the things she lived for. Listening to his slow breathing was the most relaxing mantra she had ever found. Perhaps if his breathing had been slow, or his eyes hadn't been staring into space just like the last time she'd seen him, she wouldn't have realised he hadn't batted an eye all night.

It didn't make sense; she knew he needed the two days for it to work, knew the less time he gave it, the less likely it would work. He should've acted on it yesterday if he wanted to get away with it. He-, She wouldn't think it, the possibility that he wasn't going through with it was a rabbit hole she would not enter. Because he had said it. She reminded herself not to doubt what she already knew, what she had already learned. He'd told her all his reasons, he didn't deny her accusations, he was going to do it. He didn't care for what she wanted, what this meant to her, he had made up his mind, and he hadn't lied; she knew everything he had said was true. His baby would have a mum that was safe and sound. He had said it.

She didn't want to think about the implications of his actions, or lack thereof. He had to act on it now if he wanted it to work; he should have acted on it yesterday. Draco didn't leave things to chance. He couldn't forgo this, that's what he said. Why hadn't he done it, then?

She couldn't understand it and she refused to think about it. That's when she started paying attention to his troubled end of their connection.

He was sad; he was deeply sad and holding back. She didn't want to think about why or what she was doing when she started prodding the edge of their connection; she told herself she just wanted to soothe his nerves, she just wanted to get it all over with.

She leaned in for a kiss, cradling his face in her hands while she did so; she covered his body with hers as she straddled him. He'd stiffened for a moment and then groaned as if in pain before kissing her back, before crushing her body against his and rolling on top of her when he felt it was too much.

He trailed more kisses down her body, made her come enough times to make her unconscious, but didn't make love to her. He watched her sleep, coming to terms with his inability to cast the contraception spell just yet; to relinquish the possibility so blatantly or know that if he wasn't strong enough, he'd have to watch her do it. He didn't want to think anymore, so he didn't.

She opened her eyes for the second time that day to find him lying on his side. She knew he'd been watching her, his hand lay underneath his head, and she could see the sun hiding in the horizon through the window. Their second day together ended.

Her stomach roared, reminding them both she hadn't eaten since their argument. He stood up swiftly and with a flick of his wand revealed a table at the end of his bed, covered with a white tablecloth, short flowers in the middle and two plates served. It looked too romantic for her to ignore it, but Draco picked up one of the plates and took it to her, leaving it in a tray next to her on the bed. Then he turned around and went to stand by the window.

Hermione took the plate back to the table and sat on one of the dressed chairs, taking her first bite as she stared at his back. She lost her appetite after a few bites.

"Draco." Her voice pierced the silence like a knife.

He didn't move.

Was he waiting for her to continue? She gulped down her anxiety, "You should have something to eat too."

"I'm fine." His voice sounded too raw for her to digest what was happening.

"We have to talk," she started, but he cut her off before she could think how to start.

"Let's not." He turned to her and sat on the opposite side of the table, taking a glass of wine and gulping it down.

"Draco," she tried again. He took hold of her hand and shushed her with a kiss on her palm.

It was late, it was too late and she didn't want to think about the implications. He hadn't done anything, and he wasn't going to, she understood that now.

The next day, they had classes, and he hadn't gotten over his contrite demeanour. He opened doors, pulled chairs, walked her to classes without the spontaneity and cockiness he used before. Not that there was much to be cocky and joyful about, but it all had an air aching to the fake pretences they had started with.

She noticed he had started to use his despondent façade in front of Ginny, now keeping a reserved air about himself. She wanted to bring it up when they were alone, but then he left the pretences out the door and made her forget the world. He delved into her eyes with such devotion that she forgot how to breathe, let alone ask what was going on.

Ginny opened her eyes to what was going on when, with an apologetic smile, she tried to convince her that Draco wasn't such a great catch after all.

Hermione gave all she had into the argument. It hurt to see her only friend on-board with her lose hope. She fought until Ginny took her hands in hers to tell her that it looked like Draco had already read her feelings for him and was going for a quiet retreat.

The redhead told her it would be better to stop the charade already and start forgetting about him. Hermione had blanched and refused to hear anything else from her friend or her attempts to make her see 'reason'.

That night, while Hermione hugged her knees to her chest to keep herself from crying, she waited for Draco to come to her. He never came.

She had refused to think about it for far too long. Now he had already made way for the inevitable. She had been mad at him; she'd felt too angry to see things clearly. She'd been too sure of his resolve to force her will to realise that at the end, he had complied with her. She'd been too mad at him for ignoring her choices in such a transgressive subject, too angry to see the reality of her options. She had given up on him before they had a fighting chance, and that was simply unforgivable of her. Why hadn't she questioned what lines would she cross for him, why had she judged his actions so crudely when all he tried to do was protect her, protect them both?

At the time, it had looked so frivolous; his reasoning had seemed so unworthy when he painted a picture of a life well off at his side. She had been so sure he would go through with it, and had dwelled so much on the cost of her sacrifice that she hadn't seen what the alternative really meant. While she would never conceive a child to earn the acceptance of her peers, of his parents; she didn't consider it too high a price in exchange of him, of his sanity, of a life where leaving her wasn't the best for her safety; because she knew he would do it. He had done it before; she had seen the extents he would go for in the name of her wellbeing. This, this had been a way out, and she had botched it up. She had ruined it all.

She had never cared about his family, about their power, about their money, or about what they could do to her. She'd always known she would take whatever he threw at her and keep him at her side, but then he had gone and grown stronger than whatever rooted him to her. She had learned that given the chance, he would trap her in a crystal box in the furthest corner of the world to keep her safe.

To think all he looked for was her peace of mind. She swallowed. What had she done? What had she refused? She hadn't, she hadn't turned down any offer; she had been too busy assuming he would disregard her decisions again, to actually think them through.

She didn't want it all to be over, this was not what she wanted, what she would have chosen. She hadn't thought that Draco's resolve to disregard her decision would in the end be the right thing after all. He was forcing her, compelling her; he had tricked her! Stripped her of her wand to-, to then-, to then just leave her be. Because that's what he'd done, right? She could see it now; she could understand it all now, from that first kiss after his excuses, to his stoic stance throughout the night. He hadn't slept, he hadn't been able to with the weight of it all, with what respecting her decision meant for them, for their future.

How stupid, stupid she had been! The days were gone; her time was gone. He hadn't touched her below the waist after that day. It was all kisses and tender caresses; he'd taken strength from her, she knew it, the way he had drunk from her kisses, she should have seen it coming.

He hadn't even come tonight, he hadn't met her in anything but broom closets and empty classrooms, and now she realised they hadn't been close to anything that looked remotely like a bed ever since. He hadn't come tonight; he hadn't come to meet her when she was breaking down, because she was in her chambers, in her bed.

Even when she was long past her fertile days, he didn't want to take chances. He would not want to take chances.

She sobbed then.

Had she really forced this decision on him? Had she been the one to make up his mind, really? Her? It seemed as if they were talking about someone entirely different, someone else. She couldn't be the one to have ruined it all.

She refused to accept it; she wouldn't take this fate. She was a witch, she could tamper with her cycle, hadn't she mentioned the fertility potion herself? She had more tricks up her sleeve than him on this matter. Being the avid reader she was, she had devoured every speck of information that crossed her path, however useless it had seemed at the time. In fourth year, she thought it would serve her boys right to know the old tricks witches used to get pregnant from unsuspecting rich wizards.

Harry and Ron had given her hell at the time for even speaking of such explicit things, but she had thought it worth warning them. What with deranged hormonal teenagers like Romilda Vane? Oral encounters had always been known to not need contraceptive charms or potions, but all it took was a relocating spell conjured at the right moment. The witch wouldn't even taste the results of her partner's pleasure; it was directed straight to her womb.

It was immediate, it was effective, and it was genius, because his shock would be genuine when his father summoned him.

She drank the fertility potion that morning, and when she cornered him in a broom closet that afternoon, he hadn't even asked why she'd been late for classes that day. She crashed her lips to his, and snogged him senseless. It hadn't been the first time she had done this to him, but she still surprised him when her kisses started travelling south down his body. He was far too gone to say anything about it by then.


	12. Chapter 12

**Bond **

**Chapter 11 **by WickedDiSaster

Draco was utterly perplexed when his father summoned him with not so much as an owl of warning. Now that he was walking to his office, his interest was more than slightly peaked. His father sat staring at the fire with his back to him, and Draco could feel the rage emanating from him in waves.

"Father," he said, trying to hide his anxiety.

"Sit." His father's voice echoed through the room.

Draco took the chair in front of him with slight apprehension, and a cup materialized in front of him as soon as took his seat.

"Drink," his father sneered, and Draco begrudgingly drank the truth serum, forcing himself not to blink or waver under his father's cold stare.

"Tell me, Draco, did you forget how to cast contraception spells?"

The question caught him off guard, but he didn't show it, "No, of course not, I've cast them since I was thirteen." No need to tell him he'd been casting them with the same witch ever since, or that it had been said witch, whom he learned them from.

"Did you start trusting the Mudblood to cast them for you?"

"No." He was the one to do it, it was always him, it was the gentlemanly thing to do, and he was anything if not careful with her since he kissed someone else in fourth year.

"How in the hell, then, did you get her pregnant?"

Those words shocked him to the last nerve ending in his body. He choked on his words. "What? No, that, that can't be, you are wrong. You must have made a mistake. That's not possible." Draco recovered his confidence with each word he said, it couldn't be, he was sure.

His father stared him down with a cold glare for a long time. It unnerved Draco to no end, so he broke the silence. He had to clear whatever delusion his father had; there was no point on any of this now. "You are mistaken," Draco started in an even voice, "I know she wasn't pregnant last time it happened, I made sure, I checked." He saw something flicker in his father's eyes, but he continued, "I haven't, we haven't, not anything of the sort since then," he couldn't say more with the truth serum running in his system, so he settled for that, not liking the furious look that overtook his father's eyes. He didn't understand it, Lucius knew he was telling the truth, he knew there was nothing to worry about now that he'd cleared his doubts, yet the fury in his eyes was unprecedented.

"She gave you a blow job today, didn't she?" Lucius hissed.

Draco's stunned face at his knowledge was all the answer Lucius needed. He crashed the cup in front of him against the wall.

"That conniving Mudblood whore!" his father roared.

Draco stood up, eying his father's irate pacing with bewilderment. Had he finally lost it? What was he on about? He kept muttering obscenities and firing curses against useless ornaments in his office.

Draco caught his attention before he destroyed his entire office. "Father," he started, and it was as if Lucius just remembered he was there, and Draco was, at least, glad his irate eyes were not directed at him. His anger, he realised, was directed at something completely different.

"She tricked you," Lucius mouthed with hatred.

Draco's bewilderment had reached a new level when he heard the words coming out of his mouth. "Father, what-" Draco tried to ask, but his father interrupted him.

"She tricked you into getting her pregnant, and now she's with child, Draco, YOUR child! She knows we will be held responsible if something happens to either of them. That deceitful cunt was smarter than I gave her credit for, she must have seen through your façade. She must have realised you were using her," Lucius continued muttering under his breath, but Draco had stopped listening.

He blanched, what was Lucius on about, that couldn't be, it couldn't be, he, he, "How?" Draco managed to voice with what little semblance of control he managed.

"It's one of the oldest tricks in the book, there's no way to prove it; not that it would be much help. You'd still have to marry her."

"Marry her?" the words seemed foreign to him, he felt as if in a dream, nothing made sense, was he still sleeping? Had he fallen into a nightmare that was taunting him with fake illusions? He could barely hear his father's voice still echoing through the room.

"… a relocating charm," his father muttered, making him finally understand what was going on.

"Does she hate you?" his father asked in the middle of his dawning comprehension. "What can we expect of her?" he pressed.

Draco answered before he could think it through, "She's in love with me, she's been in love from the start, you can expect her to comply with anything I tell her to, she," he stopped as he heard himself speak, shocking himself and his father with the truth of his words. He wanted to choke on them, and Lucius mistook his apprehension with horror when he urged him to continue.

"She…?"

Draco gulped, "She probably just wanted to marry me; she must have seen I was going to leave her eventually." Draco had to sit down. He couldn't believe his ears, had he really just figured that out? He needed to leave, he needed to storm out of that office, and he needed to do it now. "I need to leave," he said, getting up from his chair, while Lucius looked at him warily. He had only known the boy he'd been, the one who had tantrums, and cowered in fear of him. Lucius had never seen the man Draco had become, the man she had made of him.

"We haven't finished yet," Lucius told him, "You've reacted better to this than I would have expected."

Draco turned to glare at his father, "What else do you want from me? With this, you are most likely to get your ruddy vaults now. You are going to make me marry her one way or the other, and no amount of begging is going to change that. There's nothing you need to worry about concerning her now, because besides this scheme she managed to pull, she won't dare raise a finger against your plans. I'm going to leave now, because I can't stand the sight of you one more second. You make me nauseous."

Lucius looked at him with an empty expression on his face. "One day you'll understand, Draco, there's no other way out now."

Draco slammed the door shut behind him, breathing heavily and running towards the fire. His father was most likely able to hear him, but he didn't care. It fit his reaction anyway. Deep down he knew; he had probably just earned the modicum of respect for which he'd craved so much in his youth. Now that he couldn't care less for what the old coot thought of him. Now he was just trying to get away because that bloody serum had made him tell more truths than he had been able to process, and he was terrified of it happening again, of his father pulling out the truth.


	13. Chapter 13

**Bond **

**Chapter 12 **by WickedDiSaster

McGonagall was surprised to see him in her fireplace but didn't make a comment. He practically ran past her to his quarters, he knew he'd find her there, he could feel her. He found her sleeping on his bed, looking at her; he was unwilling to shake her awake. She looked so peaceful. She must have felt his anxiety however, because she turned to look at him, opening her eyes.

"Draco," she murmured.

"Is it true?"

She smiled. As if his question confirmed the news, instead of the other way around. She beamed with unshed tear of happiness.

He kissed her, then, kissed her with all his might, with all his being. Had she really fooled him that way? Had she played him like puppet from the start? Why? How? When?

He could hardly process the questions in his head. He was overwhelmed with everything else; he stopped questioning how she had done it to dwell on what it meant for their future now that she had succeeded. He ended up flabbergasted.

He was still kissing her; she was pulling at his hair, crushing him impossibly closer to her. He had never felt her be so happy. He was elated himself. His worshiping kisses weren't near efficient in portraying what he felt. It couldn't be; he'd been convincing himself of it, repeating it like a mantra all these days.

But it was; he could taste the veracity of it on her lips, in each of her touches, in the way she hummed his name like it was a testament to her happiness. As if asking the question himself had not only confirmed it, but made it possible.

They finished that night in a grunt of tears as he worshipped her body, her sacred, holy body shuddering beneath him. He tried to roll off her so as not to crush her but she clawed her nails into his back as soon as he moved to do so. His heavy breathing accompanied the butterfly kisses on her face, neck and chest as he rested on his arms to avoid crushing her. She nuzzled his neck drawing him to her, breathing him in as they came back to planet Earth.

He didn't seem to understand her need for closeness, she wanted to imprint him on her skin and he was holding back. She pushed him to the side, rolling them so she could be on top, so he couldn't keep any distance and yet, her weight could not give her enough pressure against her skin, not near enough to engrave him like she wanted to.

He touched her arms, caressing her back and nuzzling her hair, when she looked up at him. She had never seen him look at her that way. The sole intensity of it shook her to the core and left her breathless.

"Draco," she whispered in a gasp.

"Hermione," he replied, casting the same awe of his regard in his voice.

He pushed a curl that was obscuring her sight behind her ear; she used the opportunity to nuzzle the hand that had just caressed her cheek, whispering softly, "I love you," against his palm, followed by a whispered, "I'm sorry," as she looked at him.

"Whatever for, my love?" he whispered, bringing her towards him to kiss her front.

"I was so stupid, so utterly blind, I,"

He shushed her with a chuckle, "Hermione Granger being stupid; has there ever been greater blasphemy?"

She sighed, "I wasn't thinking, I didn't want to accept it, I was too God damn happy to burst my own bubble, I'm so sorry,"

She would have probably gone on forever but he stopped her stubborn rant with a kiss that soon made her forget her name. "You are perfect, Hermione Granger, you made this happen. You even managed to trick me and astound my father. I was going to blame it on foolishness, on lust-drunk mistakes, but you managed to free me of responsibility, managed to corner my father into forcing us into marriage. My way wouldn't have worked; the first thing he did was pour me a cup of truth serum. You kept me true, through my denial, my innocence and my shock. He figured out your stunt Hermione, before I could even begin to dream it possible, he knew what had happened from the start. I never showed myself off in front of my father, but he managed to see glimpses of the real me – of the level-headed, family loyal me – and I could tell he was impressed. He knew he'd gotten me into this, and even when I rebuffed him and left, I could tell he was proud of what he saw, of what you made of me."

She remained quiet for a long time, processing his words, as she drew patterns on his chest. "He knows it was me then," she spoke, "good, then, that's one less person to face."

She didn't elaborate and he didn't prod her to. He didn't expect her to tell Ginny until he found them in the common room. Ginny's shocked disbelief had been all he needed to see. Had she told her about the pregnancy the redhead would have jumped to hug her friend and promise her to exert revenge on him; but Ginny's stunned silence and recoiled stance had told him enough.

Draco closed the door behind him, announcing his presence with a soft thud. "She told you then," he stated, drawing Ginny's attention to him. She looked positively apologetic and horrified.

"I guess you could say I rub off on people," he continued. "She has been spending an awful long time with me, after all."

The redhead seemed to have trouble finding her voice. He would have stopped her upcoming apology anyhow. "You'll need to polish your act better than that, Ginny, you are her best friend; she wouldn't hide her engagement from you. You have to pretend to have been in the know from the start."

"Eng- engagement?" She gaped, the wheels turning in her head, "a marriage, of- of course." His family name couldn't afford anything else. "You're going to," she swallowed, "you are going to marry."

"Naturally, Ginny. My father will take care of the details; I trust I can confide in you to take care of _your_ family."

If possible, the redhead lost whatever colour she had left. "Don't look so distraught, Weasley, I promise you, I'm not the worst thing that can happen to your friend," he joked.

"No, of course you're not." Ginny looked at Hermione as if she were an impostor.

"I'm going to tell them too, Gin," Hermione voiced.

"I would ask you to narrow your confessions to the confines of this room, I would have hoped there hadn't been any to begin with," Draco told her.

"It's just going to be Harry and Ron, I'll force them into an Unbreakable Vow if I have to," Hermione replied. "It's for the best."

"Alright," Draco begrudgingly gave in, "then I believe my father might have slipped some hints into our upcoming marriage in tomorrow's Daily Prophet."

Hermione stood up at once. "I have to go to McGonagall's then," she said as she rushed past him.

Reading her intentions to contact Pothead and the Weasel, Draco lost no time in warning her, in a no nonsense tone, "You bring them here if you must, you don't go to them. Is that clear?" His over-protective nature made him look as menacing as the iron grip that he had on her hand. She put a hand on his to calm him down, before promising to do just that.

Then he was alone with her friend, trying to control his urge to follow her to the Headmistress' office.

"I'm sorry, Draco," the redhead broke the silence, misreading his moodiness.

Draco couldn't help the chortle that escaped his lips; she was almost breaking his resolve of staying true to his act. "What are you sorry for, Ginevra? I know you didn't have anything to do with it."

"I never thought she'd-, I thought you guys could be together, I misread you at first, I guess. I shouldn't have encouraged her to do anything, Draco, I'm sorry." The defeat in her voice twitched Draco's guilt. When had he grown a heart?

He breathed, covering his eyes with his hands, "You didn't misread anything, Weasley, I did like her; I just thought it wasn't a good idea at the time. Once my father got back his influence, he wasn't going to be so adamant about our relationship. I didn't like the prospect of breaking her heart." Let it be unsaid that he had already done it once.

"Oh, God, Draco, I'm so so-,"

"If you say you're sorry one more time, Ginny, I'm going to make sure you _are_ sorry."

The door to the common room opened and in came the threatening voices of Potter and Weasley. "We'll see who's sorry in the end, Malfoy."

"I knew you couldn't hide your true colours for long, Ferret."

"Ron, just be quiet please, take a seat," Hermione's strained voice interrupted them.

Draco stood up from his couch and crossed the room towards his chambers, crossing Ginny on his path, "Help her out, will you, Ginny? Just give a shout if you think you need me."

Hermione looked at their exchange befuddled, wondering if he had told her anything after she left, but the disappointed look in Ginny's eyes told her all she needed to know.

It took them a while to agree to the Unbreakable Vow before she started; they were never to utter a word of what they spoke.

Once Ginny calmed them down and the silence settled in, she didn't know how to begin. "I," she started, not knowing how to continue; this was ten times harder than her talk with Ginny. "I'm, I'm pregnant," she blurted, and the silence was broken by the astounded disbelieving cries, and promises of retribution. Hermione couldn't quite process a word they were saying until Ron stood up and roared, "I'M GOING TO KILL THAT BLOODY BASTARD!"

She had reacted as fast as she could, yelling at him, "No!" But Harry had trapped her in his arms and it had been Ginny who was the one to stop her brother, with cries of, "Wait Ronald, you don't understand, it wasn't him!"

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief as he saw her friend stop his advances, and turn to look at her. "Then who?" he asked, flexing his fingers as if to prepare them for a hard blow.

Hermione breathed, breaking from Harry's grasp, and taking in the heavy weight of her own body. She beckoned Ronald to come closer, and taking a hold of both of their hands, she begged them to sit down with her eyes. They did, and she started again. "It was me," she gulped.

Ginny watched them over their shoulders, ready to pounce if they stood up again.

"What?" Harry broke the silence, forcing Hermione to repeat herself.

"I, I did this, I, I tricked him."

"What?!" It was Ron's disbelieving voice this time. "Is this some bloody sham to cover his arse; are you trying to convince me not to kick him to an inch of his life? Just fucking tell me, who the hell it was, if not Malfoy then who?!"

"That's not what I meant," Ginny broke in, "she's telling the truth. It's just that she," she stumbled over her words, "I never thought she could, I knew she was in too deep, I never thought encouraging her would be, I, I, I knew he liked her too. I just didn't think it through. I didn't see the whole picture," she started babbling, "I thought I could help them be, be together, for real, but then he, he pulled away and well, I thought that meant he wasn't interested and tried to dissuade her from pursuing him but, I, I never saw it coming. I never thought she-,"

"What are you on about?" Harry's disbelief stopped Ginny's rant. "Are you really trying to take the blame from that ferret! What are you saying? That she seduced him?" He was mad enough to spit fire, "That he didn't know what he was doing? If he wasn't fucking interested he knew better than to take advantage of her, we're not fucking children, everyone knows how it bloody works. He didn't even have the decency to cast a bloody spell!"

"Harry," Ginny whimpered, covering her mouth in her hand, "you don't understand."

Harry was ready to retaliate with fury at his girlfriend but Hermione's voice stopped them. "Harry, I," she focused on the hands she was holding, "I tricked him."

"How could you have, Hermione? He knew perfectly well what he was doing!"

"He didn't know, Harry, I never told him. I never mentioned it to him," she took a deep breath, "the way I warned you _both_ during fourth year."

She waited for it to settle in, and felt the realization dawn as their hands tensed in her grasp, and Ronald pulled from her as if she had burned him.

Nor Harry or Ron seemed to find their voice, "Wh- why would you-"

"I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't mean to hurt you, either of you." She gulped.

Harry didn't seem to be able to look at her. Ron wasn't doing any better, glaring daggers at the floor, but he was the one to break the sombre stillness. "He's a Malfoy, Hermione, what were you thinking, you can't expect him to do right by you."

Hermione swallowed, Ginny fumed, but it was Draco who answered his question. "You seem to think I have a choice, Weasley. Have you forgotten why I agreed to this sham in the first place? Do you think anyone would believe Hermione Granger, War Heroine, best friend to the Boy-Who-Lived, played _me _and not the other way around?" Draco walked over to them, "Do you think they'd care? I belong to one of the oldest pureblood families of this country, Weasel, it doesn't matter if it was a trick or not, we can't afford this now."

Draco had never thought that he would leave Ronald Weasley speechless, and he was hoping to savour the moment more, but Hermione's feelings were bringing him down. It was as if she herself believed her own lies. The only thing she had done was make him the happiest wizard on the planet.

"So to business now," Draco continued, "it's not in hers or my best interests to have the Wizarding world know the truth, so we're all going to pretend to have been planning a Secret Wedding at Malfoy Manor next week. As every bloody secret in this society, it will leak into the media in tomorrow's Prophet, and when word gets out, you will all say it was Hermione's idea to make it a private event. Explain how we've been planning it for months; how you found out during Christmas yourselves, and how she made you swear not to breathe a word of it, but now that the secret's out, there's not much point in not sharing her happiness." He turned to Ginevra then, "I trust you can take care of your family now?"

Ginny nodded firmly, but Ron broke their exchange with, "How do you expect us to convince them to agree on this? We can't tell them what's going on, we made an Unbreakable Vow."

"You are not to breathe a word of this ever, Weasley. As to how to convince your family, I was hoping you'd be able to figure that out yourself."

"You can tell them she's pregnant, Ron," Ginny said, "That will convince them into lying for her. It would be good to invite some members of the Order as well. Harry, you should swear them to secrecy, though."

"I need a list of everyone who's to be involved. Father will take care of delivering robes for the occasion. We can't have anyone ordering their robes this late in the ceremony." Draco looked everyone over, ready to send them out to get things started. If they were to get anything done at all, they needed to move now.

They looked too gloomy and beaten to get them going, however, and their moods were rubbing off on Hermione, which was worse. "Stop looking so devastated," Draco glowered at them, "This is supposed to be a happy affair, remember?" He wasn't having any effect on them. "Fuck it! This isn't the end of the world, you know? Just get over it already!"

Nothing.

If anything, he'd made it worse, neither of the bloody bastards dared direct a look at Hermione, and she was on the brink of tears herself. "Things were not supposed to turn out this way," he thought aloud, looking at her. He had planned for her to be the victim of this, not the culprit. He would have gladly taken his father's rejection over this. She loved them for Merlin's sake. He sighed.

"She didn't kill anyone, you know," Draco started, "she's just too smart for her own good," he continued, coming clean, "she knew we wouldn't be allowed to be together in the long run." He could feel their eyes on him now, as he himself still focused on Hermione. "Granted, I didn't see this coming, she didn't do anything I was entirely opposed to."

He found Potter looking at him as if seeing someone entirely different. The Weasel had looked away from him to turn to Hermione, as if asking her to confirm this to him; and Ginny had finally stopped looking at her as if an impostor had taken over her body. He could already start feeling the stress drain from her body, as she dared look up at him. He smiled. She ran to him and crushed him into a bear hug. He was ready to spill his guts now, if she kept hugging him like that. Draco looked up from her shoulder to find the stares of three stunned Gryffindors. He smirked; or gave as much of a smirk as he could while having her in his arms.

"Hermione?" Potter had found his voice, and Draco relinquished the feel of her as she turned back to her friend.

"Harry," Hermione sniffed.

One would have thought the Boy-Who-Lived actually had something to say to have broken his embrace, but all he did was give her a thin smile. Draco would have wiped it off his face, if not for the beaming reaction from the girl in front of him. She pulled away from him to walk to her friends and they joined in on a tight group hug, which left him feeling neglected; but when they pulled away, she reached for his hand, and it was all he needed.


	14. Chapter 14

**Bond **

**Chapter 13 **by WickedDiSaster

Weasley shocked the living daylights out of him by offering him his hand when he was leaving. "Thank you," he'd said, "You could have reacted to this in a whole different way, and then she'd-, just, just thank you." Draco had been too stunned to respond. Later he would think that there was no other possible way he could have reacted to the most incredible witch on the planet tricking him into marriage.

Potter had been less vocal as he took after his friend with a handshake, and Draco had thanked the heavens for that.

The day of the marriage came and left like a blur in his eyes. Hermione had broken in tears of happiness at the sight of one of the Weasley's presents that held the most hideous hand-made baby sweater he had ever seen. It displayed the letter M in front, and for an instant, he had believed the cursed thing had brought tears for how revolting it looked. He'd almost cursed the small garment to cinder, but he felt her happiness just in time to see her hug the old hag he knew to be Weasley's mum.

His mother had been on the brink of tears, but hers were of the more natural kind. He and his father had agreed to tell her just about the pregnancy, and avoid the part of how it came to be.

The ceremony had proceeded without much ado after that. They left their only contact with the media to the end, where each question had been screened by his father, and the trickiest one to handle, was why they had chosen the date. Hermione didn't waste time to say it was to commemorate her parent's death in the war, so in a way she could have them present during the happiest day of her life.

The most difficult part for Draco had been his father. Despite how many times Hermione reassured him, telling him it was fine, he had been walking on eggshells whenever he felt him close to her. She had faced Lucius with a fearless stance, and the latter had responded with his most impeccable act of indifference, but Draco knew better.

So it was that they got married, and she became Hermione Malfoy née Granger. He teased her endlessly about it still; but truth be told, despite how she would always be Granger to him, it made him giddy with happiness each time they called her new name in classes.

For a long time, Hermione's stomach didn't show a speck of change, so much so that she had picked up the habit of casting pregnancy spells in the morning to remind her that she was indeed pregnant. Draco found her antics absurdly charming, when she explained herself one day by saying she had expected to feel, well, "different," and not feeling any change made her anxious to say the least. _How was she to take care of her baby if she couldn't tell she had it in the first place? _

He had laughed so hard, her glare could have stunned dragons. When he recovered his ability to breathe however, he had a hard time making her speak to him again. She relented when he informed her he had noticed significant physical changes in her.

"Ok, then. What is it?" she said, breaking the silence she had punished him with.

Draco stifled a chuckle. "I think I'd rather enjoy showing you," he smirked.

She missed the devious glint in his eyes. "Alright then, show me," she said, thoroughly excited.

Draco's grin was positively predatory. "Close your eyes," he ordered, and proceeded to untie the strings holding her cloak on her.

"Draco?" she asked.

"You said you wanted me to show you, right?" he said, loosening her tie to take it off. "That's what I'm doing," he whispered in her ear, unbuttoning her shirt.

Once bare, on top of his bed, and positively aroused; he ran a finger across her palm, along her wrist, her inner elbow and arm. "You do remember how this feels right?" He continued moving it to her shoulder, "The feel of my touch against your skin?" He nibbled her neck, "my lips?" He traced his hands to the side of her body.

"Draco," she gasped.

"Shh," he whispered on her moistened neck, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing each finger before he moved to the rest of her body, carefully avoiding her chest.

When she was writhing and moaning, gasping for air, and mercy, and him; he told her with a raw hitch in his voice. "Now, do you remember how these felt?" he said, diving into her breasts.

She could have screamed in rapture.

"Yeah, that's what I meant," he said and continued. He whispered in a hoarse voice all the changes from how firm and soft they were, to how impossibly sensitive they had become, making her come undone in a shivering mess.

After his demonstration, she devoured him whole, and had finally stopped casting the pregnancy spells in the mornings. She now woke him up with the feel of her lips on his skin.

The first time she was afflicted with morning sickness, Draco all but lost his mind with worry. He felt her bolt from his bed at an ungodly hour of the morning and throw the door to the bathroom open, puking her guts out in the sink. She couldn't reach the toilet in time. He ran after her, thinking she had lost it, when her eyes twinkled happily from the mirror, before another nausea attack jolted her body.

Apparently, in the Muggle world pregnancy's trademark symptoms were having your guts delivered unto the toilet on a daily basis. Leave it unsaid that wizards had gotten rid of them before the rise of Wand Making. Nowadays, every witch and wizard that became sexually active used a spell that informed him or her when their seeds had impregnated someone or they had conceived. Old families like Draco's used a similar spell to warn them of a new heir, but since Hermione had deactivated his spell while he was too distracted to think straight, Draco's family spell tipped him off.

She then confessed to him that she had modified her pregnancy charms to allow this particular symptom to show. It had taken a lot for Draco to convince her to fix it back, but in the end, she had relented. If only because it meddled with the last of her classes at Hogwarts.


	15. Chapter 15

**Bond **

******************A/N:** The end. Finally. I'm really sorry this took this long. Thanks for reading everyone.

**Chapter 14 **by WickedDiSaster

Moving out of the castle was a nostalgic event for Hermione, and a busy one for Draco. While nobody had dared mention anything about Hermione's vacant bed in her chambers since their marriage, he now had to look for a way to go just as unnoticed by his father. He opted for the safest choice, and declared Hermione wanted to live close to her friends, convincing his father it could only serve to get his vaults process flow faster.

Once that was done, he told his father the idea of protecting their new home with the Fidelius Charm had been Potter's and therefore he was their Secret Keeper. In reality, their Secret Keeper was someone much closer to Hermione and Draco. Ginny even gave them an Unbreakable Vow never to reveal their location unless they were in imminent danger, so not even Harry or Ron knew where they lived. Their fireplace was set to only allow fire-calls and let them Fire-call to Harry's place and back.

To add to his paranoia, they lived in the most inconspicuous of places his father would find him, in the middle of Muggle London; and not in the opulent luxurious area but in a neighbourhood not too different from the one in which Hermione had grown up.

Hermione's check-ups were both Muggle and magical. Draco had a Portkey activated by touch at the ready to direct them to one of the bathroom stalls of their Muggle Hospital, which was charmed to be permanently vacant. The Muggle Hospital had been Hermione's request, but Draco had deemed it the safest route of action. They still had St. Mungo's booked for a delivery, but it was more to keep appearances and be on the safe side in case the Muggle hospital failed them or in case of complications during delivery.

If all went according to plan, Draco would tell his father that he had made her go through natural delivery, since she had been the one to force the pregnancy upon herself to begin with.

Hermione spent most of her pregnancy preparing for her internship in the Reinforcement of Magical Law the following year, and controlling Draco's shopping spree for their newborn (after they had to magically expand their quarters twice to fit it all).

Whenever Draco wasn't busy manipulating the Malfoy Vaults so only he were granted control over them, he focussed on getting himself acquainted with the Malfoy Empire and the studies of Magical International Relations that his father forced him to take to start him on a career at the Ministry.

While Draco wanted to get his father as far away from them as they could, Hermione dedicated all her efforts on making him a part of their life; a fact that brought Draco to the brink of insanity. She deluded herself into thinking his father would eventually accept them, Draco knew better than to believe his father would settle to have the family line tainted perpetually. He was sure Lucius only saw her as a temporary nuisance, a nuisance he could take care of later.

Draco had gone as far as to point this out to Hermione, but she had told him he wouldn't find reason to do that if she proved herself to be useful. Draco almost ripped his hair out when he heard her say this. Hermione's belief that everyone was redeemable and deserving of second chances made Draco want to put her in hiding and never let her leave her chambers.

Why she had to be so obstinate about his father's soul was something Draco couldn't understand. He understood where it came from, he did. He knew that had she not entered in his life, had she not been linked to him the way she was, Draco would have most likely ended up like his father. He didn't care. He wanted her as far away from that monster as he could get her. Why couldn't she understand that?

Why did she have to engage in formal visits, luxurious charades, and disreputable galas? She had even taken it upon herself and made the announcement of the new Malfoy heir into an astounding success. She had even managed to make the Minister of Magic himself declare the new Malfoy heir was the marking of a new era, a living proof of what their crumbled society could accomplish united, a promise of the future.

His parents had been unable to control their exulting smirks as the cameras clicked at the end of his speech. Draco knew she had managed to impress his father, but also knew it wasn't enough, nothing would never be enough.

He was ready to make an unbreakable vow to renounce the Malfoy name if his father produced a pureblood heir he could marry to a reputable wife. He wanted to make her understand that he simply wanted to keep her safe, and there was nothing safe about his father for her. He should have known she would surprise him yet again.

She started it as a comment. A nonchalant remark about the old pureblood families and old curses used to avoid partners to go astray, or producing an heir.

"Have you ever heard of such a curse used in the family, Lucius?" Draco heard her say, and saw her eyes gleam mischievously. She was perfectly aware of how it irritated his father when she referred to the Malfoy family as _her_ family.

"Perhaps," his father sneered, trying to hide his displeasure.

"How odd, I was sure you had, you see; and then you wouldn't be too mad at me for using an adaption of my own on Draco."

'_What the Fuck!' _ Draco thought, his glass of wine hitting the table with a loud clunk.

"An adaptation?" His father repeated with a fake inquiring tone that did a better job of hiding his bewilderment.

Hermione waved her wand, making Draco jolt on his seat as a shimmering light emanated from his middle. "There, you see?" she continued casually, "It makes Draco unable to procreate with anyone that isn't me. Crafty, mind you, I made it so it works even in the case of my demise."

Draco choked on his food; she smiled warmly back at him. "That can't be," Draco whispered at her.

"But it is, dear; I used your blood and all. You are bound to me for life."

Draco could hardly contain his joy. "You bloody bitch!" He stood throwing his chair to the floor. He could have swept her off her feet in his arms, yet he glared the living daylights off her marvellous face instead. He let the glasses pour its contents on the table as he veered threateningly close to her, deeply enjoying how wonderfully close to her luscious lips he was.

She smiled cheekily at him, while his father destroyed his napkin in a wisp of smoke under his hands.

"Sit down, Draco, nobody wants to make your wife more suspicious of you."

Draco faked uncontrolled rage while his mother burst into tears.

"Such mistrust is not befitting of a Malfoy, Hermione. You would do well to leave your Muggle ways behind."

Hermione turned a feral smile towards his father. "Muggle ways? Why? I do believe I learned it all from my husband." She smiled brilliantly at Lucius, "And he learned from the best, didn't he?"

Draco's lips crushed hers as soon as they appeared in their home's Floo. "You minx! You magnificent, magnificent witch, you!" He twirled her around out of their fireplace, her stomach pressing lightly against him. "How did you-, when did you-, why didn't you tell me!"

"We have a history for making our plans work better when I don't tell you things. I thought it was good luck!" He was taking off her cloak, "Besides, it worked better this way; and I wanted to surprise you." She was pulling at his tie. "As to when, I took the blood when you were sleeping."

He kissed her furiously. "The spell, I found it in your library while I took a break from one of the galas at the manor. I knew your father would recognise the bright smoke, it's the spells trademark," she continued.

"But you tweaked it." He was struggling with the buttons of her dress; he ended up ripping them apart. She gasped.

"Only so the effects lasted after my death, your father knows it's unbreakable. It's been in your family for ages." They were leaving a trail of clothes towards their bedroom.

"How did you tamper with it?" He breathed in between a kiss.

"Instead of grounding it on our marriage, I based it on your love for me. Your father is never going to figure it out."

He drank the pure essence of her in his next kiss, "You make me wonder if the wickedness comes with the name, and not with the family, Hermione."

She laughed. He smothered her chuckles with his lips.

Hidden in between the shelves lay the book Hermione had stolen from his library, one of its pages containing the story of Martin Luke Malfoy, and his life spent on avenging his frustrated marriage to a commoner. Written in small runes in the footnotes, laid the legend of the curse he had invented to break the pure bloodline of the family, "The bonding curse."

_*The End*_


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